


Passing Through the Fire

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-25
Updated: 2011-05-25
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:12:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as a fill for this [info]kinkme_merlin prompt: Arthur/Merlin Fusion with Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The film is set in the massive, sprawling futuristic mega-city Metropolis, where society is divided into two classes: one of planners and management, who live high up in luxurious skyscrapers and one of workers, who live and toil underground. Basically a retro-futuristic AU featuring Arthur as the son of a tyrant exploiting the masses and Merlin as a conscripted worker who harbours secret revolutionary ideas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passing Through the Fire

It was like a giant monster, fed by the lives of many. It grew and pulsed, glowed and whirred and sucked and sapped the strength of them all away, this fiery secret engine that worked and pistoned in the dark underbelly of the city. Like a leech, it was. Like a vampire latching on and tearing away at skin to get at the throbbing life-blood of its victims.

It was their Moloch, their angry deity.

Sightless eyes gazed up at it when bent backs righted themselves between one step and the next; feet fettered by shackles made of both metal and weariness made a hard task of standing tall.

There was no light here and there was no life. There was only toil and fatigue, dirt and oblivion, and the dank, mephitic air that poisoned and starved the lungs of those who weren't free to worm their way outside.

They were alike; they were all servants to the great beast. Like sad phantoms, they were all wrapped in frayed white uniforms, much like overalls and tagged by number. They were trapped here according to their nature and occupation, the hours of freedom few and far between. They lived on a pittance, silent beggars all of them.

Underneath, there were no smiles and no words, no kisses and no curses. Age was unimportant, a detail that was soon forgotten, creed an afterthought, gender a distinction no one paid much heed to anymore; sex had lost its meaning when there was no life to reaffirm or celebrate and all libido was dried up. Those who still craved and wanted lost and spent themselves in pure lust.

Hunger and hardship; illness and hopelessness did reign supreme; these faceless automata working at their task weren't waiting for anything anymore.

No voice rose in protest; till a few did.

****

August, 2166

The loft's balcony overlooked the golden city, a glittery flat expanse. From the 103rd floor, humanity looked like a swarm of ants, crawling past on their way to wherever, heads bent, movements mechanical, grey and faceless, but for those who were merely passing by and didn't belong to the masses. The setting sun's rays were gilding the railings and the city, the sun itself an orange orb that was no longer blinding in its unfettered shine, but dull and faded in its bronze tones. But then it always was. Lacklustre, burnt out. The sky itself was blooming purple at horizon level and night was setting in.

The plate glass picture window slid open with barely a sound; he could now pick out different noises from the cacophony that was jarring his ears: the clinking of glasses, the tapping of heels, the laughter coming from behind him.

Leon was handsome in his double-breasted jacket and hair that needed trimming but made him appear appraochable. Vivian, in a slip dress, waltzing with a champagne glass in her hand, sounded as though she'd had a little too much. Helen could sing arias like a diva but was now humming a tune Arthur had heard somewhere but could not recognise, a lullaby perhaps, or a mournful dirge.

“This is dull,” someone slurred. “This is infinitely dull. Arthur, dear, liven it up.”

“I agree,” said Sophia, her pale Renaissance beauty a striking contrast to the sharp, shiny edges of the forbidding, dwarfing architecture surrounding her. “I agree.”

In a half-daze, she toed off her sandals, tottered and bumped right into Arthur's side. “Something must be done,” she insisted.

Her cheeks were hollow; there were dark gouges under her eyes, as if someone had smeared kohl on her cheekbones, her beautiful porcelain skin like the flesh of a corpse, a drowned Ophelia, surrounded by the wonders of the modern world instead of wild forest flowers.

Like a painting in motion, too quick for Arthur to grab, she jumped on the rail, half-full glass still in hand. “Do something,” she ordered Arthur, looking down at him as though she weren't balancing on a thin bar of welded metal. “Arthur, relieve my boredom.”

Owain laughed. “Let her, Arthur. It's going to be quite the spectacle.”

“I won't die,” said Sophia, toasting the sun, an ample motion of her arms stressing the theatricality of her gesture. She was like a ballerina on a stage, but her performance was grotesque. Her bow graceless and ungainly.

Pellinore said, “Good god!”

Leon, sprang into action. His expression, his frantic dive, prompted Arthur to move too, blood pumping in his veins at a double rate when it had run its sluggish course through him but a moment before. It was all or nothing; the dulled edges of instincts lying dormant or full hectic consciousness. He leaped towards Sophia; took a hold of her arm. She opened her hand and her glass plummeted down, an aerial flight that was about to end in a soundless little crash. She swayed, leaning forward, and almost doubled over. And then Arthur felt all her weight as she was dangling from his arms, hands around his neck. His own muscles and tendons were on fire, but he heaved.

And then Leon was there and together they hauled her in, torso first. She crumpled at the foot of the rail and laughed, loud and jarring. “Take me to the Mechanic Opera, Arthur,” she said, and sniffed, hair flying wildly in the evening breeze.

Cenred said, “A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste...”

Leon grunted, almost doubling back to assault the man. His hands opened and closed, clenched into fists, but then he let go.

Owain said, “Nah, I'd rather watch your father's speech. A Pendragon on a dais giving a speech; that's wholesome. It was mentioned in the papers, how good it’s going to be, how moral. It’s going to be momentous.”

“That's nothing new,” objected Pellinore. “I'm sorry, Arthur, but that's what your esteemed father has been doing for the past twenty years.”

Arthur ignored them both, sliding down so he was sitting right next to Sophia. There were tears at the corner of her eyes. “Want to go back inside?” he asked.

She shook her head, wide eyes blown and lost. “I was raising my glass. The least I could do.”

“I see,” said Arthur. “You shouldn't...” He sought words that wouldn't sound like moralising, proselytising, but he feared he'd lost the ability to be down to earth when all he'd ever heard was speechifying. He could almost touch it; the hollowness of her despair. He wished he could say something, anything, that would make a difference but he didn't know how to. He was the same as her; had nothing to offer that didn't come out of the same dead mould.

“Let's go inside,” he said, hooking an arm around hers and lifting her up.

She reeled again and then snuggled against his side, warm and trembling like a woodland creature hounded by hunters. A vehicle hovered past, headed towards the palace and his father's residence. Arthur ignored it and pushed Sophia inside, not paying attention to the other guests scattered around his flat like the pieces of a crumbled domino.

A man and a woman, friends of friends, were rutting on his favourite armchair, her long legs exposed to Arthur’s view as they wrapped themselves around the man's lower back. Arthur could see his arse muscles flex and relax, and when he shifted onto his knees, Arthur's could see the man's turgid, reddened cock as it sank inside her. He glanced away, muscles going tense, but Sophia followed his line of sight and her hand went to palm Arthur’s own crotch. He felt no stirring; he was cold and lost. He stepped back and she let go, saying, “I need something to drink.”

“Soph, no.”

“Give me a good reason why not.”

Two girls danced around them as they were chasing each other across the room, one holding a silk neck scarf above her head, letting it stream behind her, all golden and dazzling silver filigree woven into its pattern. She turned around on her bare feet, standing on tiptoe like a dancer, to let herself be caught by her friend. They shared a passionate kiss, long and deep, one that was striving to become more.

Someone turned on the screen of the window wall; the image displayed on it wasn't an unusual one: his father was standing on a dais, a ribbon microphone before him, the old town hall clock behind him. He was flanked by two men, his security detail, but another person was there too: an individual Arthur recognised as the Secretary for Education stood quietly close to Arthur’s father, hands cupped before him, head bowed. His barrel chest and stocky frame made him look like a suited doorframe, like an incongruous creature out of a caricature drawing.

And then Father cleared his throat and spoke into the mike. His voice rang cold, powerful and clear. “Citizens of Albion, when the future threatens us, we answer its menace with heads held high.”

A friend of Arthur's who was in the room with him clapped. “Your father has the gift of words but no honeyed tongue, Arthur.”

Arthur tuned his friend out and listened to his father's carefully constructed speech.

“We can only rise to the challenge and never blink in fear although darkness may seem to overwhelm us. Those who seek to destroy us would speak of ancient traditions and liberties; mention ways that can no longer be upheld, ways that are criminal in that they threaten the status quo of _today_. Those who can't accept change are those destined to perish. Yet they would refuse us the only means of survival using specious words and rebellious acts. The wonders of this world — those we can preserve — should benefit us all; the contribution of those who'd refuse is vital. The few shall not endanger the masses. This shall not be.”

Arthur turned his head and looked out the window. The sun had gone down.

****

The Market Square was enclosed by an iron fence that gave onto the park; the side streets were hemmed in by six-foot walls made of red brick. In a corner of the square right opposite the spires of the old church was a bakery. Men and women covered with threadbare grey overcoats were forming a queue before it, huddling in on themselves, jiggling piles of bronze coins extracted from wallets and pouches, counting them and recounting them, the sooty sky a backdrop to their actions.

The queue, a buzzing human caterpillar, continued well round the corner: men and women, ragtag urchins, workers and controllers waited, some patiently some less so, for their turn.

A bald man dressed in a coat covering his boiler suit and shoes that were missing their laces barrelled out of the shop, shouting, “Twenty thousand? Twenty fucking thousand? Let me kill my children now. One by one! Twenty thousand,” and stomped off, careening into Arthur. When he looked up, Arthur could see he was foaming at the mouth, ready to snap, but when the man set eyes on Arthur in turn, a new light glinted there, he grunted and lifted his apple cap, only to continue on his way.

This incident made Arthur stay. He removed his gloves and put them in his pocket and stood there, keeping at a distance but watching these faceless people as they went about their business. He didn't know what kept him there when he'd always glided past, never really contemplated those who lived at soil level and underground. But for the first time he stopped and paid attention.

There was a jingling sound; an old man stooped over slowly to half-blindly grope for his dropped coin, but a little kid was quicker. The boy snatched the coin and darted away with it, leaving the old man to pick himself up. There were tears in his aged, milky eyes. Arthur was debating giving him something, though he'd always been advised against such acts, when he spotted someone else. A few yards further down a little boy was standing, counting his money. He had brown hair and round hazel eyes that stared ahead in an insistent fashion; he was all alone, much like the urchin from before, but unlike him, he had nothing of the child about him. He began counting again and made as if to quit the queue, but the man standing behind him put a hand on his shoulder, thereby stopping him. “Don't. You need the food.”

“So do you,” observed the boy in a flat voice. It was small and strained and yet still hard.

The man, tall and rangy like a starved hound, hair very nearly shorn, did look as though he had gone without a meal or two, perhaps more. He smiled and pushed some coins into the boy's hand.

“I’ll survive,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I can skip it for today,” he encouraged.

And Arthur was struck by the man's eyes; they were alive, a shock of blue, burning brightly. And in this sea of dead souls the man looked like the only one who really 'was'. Was living and breathing and had some fire left inside him. He was different, like a beacon in the night, like a splash of colour in a mass of shapeless grey. Something in Arthur was being pulled towards him even as Arthur himself stood rooted to the spot.

“Besides, I don't like that baker,” the man added. So saying, he put his hands in his pockets and walked away, head down.

And this time Arthur moved, followed him.

The man walked quickly, gait a little uneven, bouncing on the balls of his feet, hands buried in his trousers. These were, or had been, a maroon brown but were now faded and full of holes and threadbare patches. His jacket, too long about the sleeves, looked like it was a hand-me-down, not quite fitting the body it was meant to protect from the weather.

The man turned a sharp left, hiking along a dilapidated street, and Arthur realised that he would have to hasten if he didn't want to lose sight of him.

The longer he followed him, the more Arthur was surprised to find that this part of lower Camelot was a polar opposite of the lofty heights he was used to; knots of people were gathered close around improvised fires; workers in their suits filed past, looking like sightless machines, a bracelet round their wrists signalling something Arthur wasn't too sure of. Thieves and robbers plied their trade and nobody seemed to mind or even see. Here there were no ladies in silken clothes treading lightly on shoes spun out of the lightest materials, or fine gentlemen in their suits striding down the vaulted corridors of the skyscrapers that dotted the city.

Here the buildings were crumbling, chunks of mortar and plaster falling from the walls. Entire sections of them lacked a ceiling and rooms gaped onto the streets. A slice of life glimpsed at for a few seconds as you rolled by. The pavements were heavily cracked; manholes were missing their covers, allowing rats to scuttle past, and the stench that permeated the air was abysmal, as if an open sewer was somewhere close.

Arthur lifted his head and saw a gate leading into a kind of building; its interior core seemed to have been hewn into the solid rock wall. Over the gate a sign had been affixed; it said 'Lifts' with an arrow pointing downwards.

Arthur pressed a hand before his mouth so as not to inhale and overtook the man he'd been trailing, just knowing that if he let go, he'd never set eyes on him again. He grabbed him by the wrist and the man whipped round, trembling and furious. His eyes widened when he saw Arthur, taking him in as though he was a creature out of a fairytale. “Who are you?” he croaked. “What could someone like you poss—”

Arthur searched his pockets and pushed a ream of banknotes into the man's hand. “I saw you. Trying to buy bread. You need to eat.”

“I don't want your charity,” the man said heatedly. “You, you don't belong here and I don't know who sent you but this — this is not a good idea. Let me go.”

Arthur didn't; instead focused on the man's wrist and the numbers tattooed on it, barely hidden by a plastic bracelet. He realised how brittle the bones felt. He could snap that wrist if he so wanted. “You need it,” Arthur repeated.

“You want to arrest me, don't you? Well, Will warned me. I'm not begging.”

And his eyes were true and shone with the light of something, something Arthur wanted for himself and longed to touch. He was drawn to this man like a moth to a flame, and it made no sense, but it was his main concern now, not to lose this, and so he acted on instinct. “I don't want to harm you. Take it. Buy yourself a meal.”

The man laughed at him. “That's not going to help,” the man said. “If you want to help me let me go. I've got to go to work.”

“A minute of your time and your name, please,” Arthur said. “I need to know who you are.”

“A minute,” the man repeated, astounded. “You have no idea, have you?”

“No, no, perhaps I don't— Just.” Arthur didn't know what he meant to convey; it if was a _I don't want to let you go_ or a you've sparked something in me and I want that in my life, but he knew something had changed and that there was no going back. He stared for a minute, gazing into the man's eyes, trying to express himself without words.

This time the man said, “If I tell you my name, will you let me go?”

“Yes.”

“Merlin.”

And Merlin shoved the money into Arthur's pockets and dashed towards the gate, disappearing in a swirl of mist and fog.

****

“Leon, I need your help.”

Leon steepled his fingers and shot Arthur a grave look. “What with?” he asked on an exhale.

“I found someone,” Arthur began. “And I need to see them again.”

Leon laughed, the set of his shoulders relaxing. “Have you forgotten to ask for this person's contact details?”

Arthur dragged a chair back and sat on it, looking out the window at the city's skyline. From here it looked as though buildings were floating on clouds, ready to take flight. An expanse weaved out of gold, radiant in its shine. “I need a boiler-suit and one of those bracelets,” he said slowly, calibrating each word. “I've been to ground level and I've noted that the bracelets people wear there come in different colours. I don't get why, but I need one. Whichever one you can lay your hands on.”

A muscle in Leon's jaw ticked. “You don't know what you're asking for, Arthur.”

Arthur sprawled in his chair, still taking in the city, which seemed to live as all illusions lived; its swirling lights starting to look like a reflection of something else, something that could not be touched and Arthur was seeking to unveil. He could see the shimmer, as if through flimsy gauze, but could not get at the real thing behind it. It felt as though he could shatter everything by snapping his fingers but nothing was giving just yet. “Then tell me what it is. What am I asking for, Leon?”

Leon put both elbows on the desk, rolling his chair closer to it, ready to engage Arthur. “I don't have an answer to your question. I'll tell you what I know. I know there's so much red tape involved in getting even some basic info on the subject of your query that the mind boggles. I know we're not supposed to ask.”

Something swelled up from Arthur’s chest and he wasn't sure whether it was indignation or acceptance, rage or disgust. He passed a sweaty hand over his brow, eyes flickering in Leon's direction. He wasn't sure he wanted to see Leon's expression now or dissect it for meaning. “Can you do it? Can you help me get what I want?”

“Tell me,” said Leon in a patient voice, hedging. Arthur had heard the same tone used to address children who’d just thrown a tantrum. “Why are you asking questions? Why have you embarked on this strange quest?” He grabbed a pen and started toying with it, knuckles white around it.

“Because there's too much I don't know,” Arthur answered, going for a part of the truth he could voice and that would make sense to ears other than his. In a way, it was like putting the intangible into words. “There's so much I've never noticed. As if I was a blind man. And it's like— It's like finally seeing something for the first time, but it's shapeless for now. Leon, I need to know. I need to.”

Leon's lips jerked into a strained smile that grew a little wider as the seconds ticked by. “I'll see what I can do to help. Without stirring shit. I'm not promising anything.”

“Very well,” Arthur told him flatly.

“I'm not lying to you.”

“No, but I'm not too sure you want to look, Leon.”

Three days later there was a packet waiting for him with his concierge.

He moved it to his bedroom with reverence, unmade the strings holding it together, and spread the items he found on his bed. A black boiler suit, a blue bracelet, a simple, round-collared white undershirt and a pair of old miner boots had been put into the package. Arthur ran his hands over the coarse fabric of the suit, smoothed it, rubbed it between his fingers, considering. This was how he found the note that had been stuffed in one of the suit's pockets. Carefully, with trembling fingers, he unfolded it. There were a few words scrawled on it: SHIFT I: 04.00 am. Chandell Street Lift.

Arthur laid himself to bed that night with the suit lying re-folded on the unoccupied pillow at his side. Silently, he lay there, staring at the ceiling, knowing that he wouldn't go today, but also planning his outing carefully, a low thrum in his gut vibrating at the bare knowledge that he would do it, shatter the glass cage, and see for himself.

The following day passed uneventfully as he followed his usual routine, going through the motions, knowing what was waiting for him at home. He had a meeting with his lawyers, regulating his trust funds, lunched at a restaurant overlooking the pleasure gardens, watching the water games, and spent all the time thinking about what he was preparing to do. He was so good at enacting his ordinary role, playing it with more gusto than usual, empowered by the knowledge that he was going to take action, that nobody noticed how he was bursting at the seams.

Finally, the time for his expedition came, darkness enveloping the world, it was so early. Silence encompassed the air; nothing stirred in the world Arthur knew as its inhabitants lay in their soft beds, still enshrouded in the coils of sleep.

Like a knight going to attend a ritual vigil, he dressed in front of the mirror, putting item by item on quite carefully, methodically. It was a new experience. The fabric chafed at his skin; the suit felt odd on him, since he wasn’t used to one-piece clothing and the size was not exactly his either, a vast difference from his tailored clothing, his bespoke suits. Nevertheless he went out, taking the monorail down to ground level.

Heart hammering in his chest, he followed the road departing from Market Square, the one he’d chased Merlin along the other day, and soon encountered a troop of workers filing by, plodding on wearily like soldiers being frogmarched by an invisible leader, a mute phalanx headed towards the lifts ahead.

Arthur mingled with them, pulling a cap over his brow. Even as he slipped among them, nobody raised their head, or lifted an eyebrow. The column of people trudged automatically on, each person keeping step with the next, eyes firmly fixed on the ground, jerky bodies lumbering onwards without a thought to spare for him. His presence hadn't registered at all and this surprised Arthur because he'd thought he'd be questioned, stopped, denounced as an intruder. Anything but this nothingness, this lack of a reaction.

Being ignored was strange and left a bitter taste in his mouth; it had never happened to him before. Not quite like this. He felt like a ghost, like he'd rescinded his tie with humanity. One among the mass of bent bodies, all wearing the same cap and overalls, he stopped being Arthur.

Reaching the lifts was slow going; there was a group of workers just ahead of the one he was trying to blend in with and they had precedence. The lift operator herded this group onto the lift and sent them down while the group Arthur was with waited on. What Arthur noted was that not a word was exchanged; there were no jokes, there was no catching up between co-workers, no slaps on the back and no greetings, not even the lifting of a hat. Arthur could only hear the mechanical sounds produced by the lift operator. As one lift went down, another came up, the workers from the previous shift exiting, now at liberty to go. There were no smiles on their faces.

Arthur must have waited some five minutes more and then he was shepherded onto one of the open cargo lifts. As though the workers and he were heading for the bowels of the earth, the journey downwards seemed endless, a vertical descent towards unknown depths. When it lurched to a stop, he stepped out and followed the group of people ahead of him, trying to imitate their way of walking, and what he saw when he exited the tiled, convex corridor he’d been marching along astounded him.

The underground space he found himself in was enormous; bigger than any factory floor Arthur had ever contemplated. It was a huge hall whose roof he couldn't begin to see, a vast power plant whose layout he could barely divine. As he gazed upwards, he saw the different tiers, interconnected by way of gangways and stairs; the work stations were manned by more of those silent workers.

An assemblage of cogs moved laboriously; it was a web of gyrating wheels fixed in place by exposed nuts and bolts, connected by fat steel pipes. The valve gear of a complex steam chest spurted black, dense vapour, which rose into the air, while the main valve filled and emptied itself, moving like a pulsating heart. The wheels that were part of the apparatus were interlinked by other, smaller moving parts and each unit was separated from the next one by concrete partitions.

There were control desks operated by labourers, who lifted and pulled down big, chunky levers, checked on gauges and level-metres, while they wiped their sweat-drenched brows, groaning loudly under the strain of manoeuvring the colossal apparatus. This system was feeding another big machine, whose control centre formed a hulking tower of menacing proportions.

Pistons rose and fell, cylinders worked, cogs turned and were turned by stooped men that looked like panting, soulless beasts. The machines — Arthur guessed they were all part of some larger mechanism — belched heat, which Arthur could feel eating at his skin, and vomited smoke, which made him cough and gasp. It was a furnace: the air so unbreathable it made him light-headed. His hands were already red, as though he'd immersed them in scalding water, suffering from the effects of the underground chamber’s high temperature.

Despite these challenging conditions, the workers were toiling hard before his very eyes, enveloped in jets of steams, braving the scorching, devastating heat, plodding on and on, the movement of the inexorable factory clock punctuating their efforts.

While they were at it, men doubled over, some collapsed at the controls, to be replaced by other faceless workers while the bodies of those who'd crumpled down were manhandled and shoved aside.

Arthur couldn't tell whether those who’d buckled down were alive or dead, but he could see what this place was. What was happening here. The screws, the pinions' components and the toothed wheels were part of a life devouring mechanism.

He blinked but all he could see was more scenes like the one he’d witnessed before: a labourer striving to shift the arms on a huge dial was being harried by one of the supervisors, who had a clipboard and baton in hand. The foreman held it up above his head, threatening the nameless, unresponsive workman.

Arthur was about to step forward and intervene, having a terrible presentiment about what was going down, when he was grabbed from behind and backed against the wall of a service hallway.

He kicked and lashed and then the lights flashed orange and he recognised Merlin, who had grabbed him by his suit's collar and was keeping him pinned to the wall.

“You stick out like a sore thumb,” he said.

Seeing him, Arthur subsided, ceased struggling. “Do I?”

“You do,” Merlin confirmed, lips turning up in an almost smile. “The way you move; your hair sticking out from under your cap. Dead give-aways.”

Arthur wet his lips and noted how Merlin hadn't let go of him even though Arthur was challenging him; how he was still pressed up against him, chest, hips and thighs. The proximity, Merlin’s breath playing on the side of his face, sent heat flaring into his chest, but he stuck to the point and asked, “How?”

“You don't look like a sleepwalker.” Merlin said. “There's an almost permanent lice infestation down here. Better keep your hair short. Your hair’s all there and it’s eye-catching.”

“That’s—” said Arthur, cocking his head in the direction of the power plant. “It's …

“I know,” Merlin told him. “But you can't stay. I don't know how you sneaked in, but you can't stay.”

“Why?”

“Because it's not safe.” Merlin's thumb strayed over the collar of Arthur's suit, touching the skin of Arthur's neck, tracing a tendon. “It's not safe.”

Arthur wanted to tell him that he didn't understand how it could be unsafe. He was doing nothing wrong; he’d just followed a bunch of people to work; his father would protect him and maybe put a stop to this, but he kept that to himself, not sure of how sound that reasoning was. “I needed to see for myself.”

“And now you know a fraction of a fraction of what there is to know,” said Merlin. “What good will that do, rich boy? Free boy?”

“I—”

Merlin let go of him, scraped a hand through his hair. “I need to find you somewhere to be. You can't go up now. It's not shift time. They won’t man the lifts for you. More likely they’d—”

“Why wouldn't I be able to leave freely?”

Merlin dipped his head. “I suspect you know the answer to that one.”

Arthur gulped. He'd acted on instinct thus far, but he was fumbling in the dark.

“Okay,” said Merlin, as if he'd made a decision, biting on his lip and squaring his shoulders.

Absently, Arthur noted he was holding onto a spanner and that his left wrist was raw, the skin around it looking swollen and covered in tiny blisters, a couple of red streaks radiating away from his pulse point.

Merlin's eyes followed his line of sight, he dropped the tool and said, “Was rather lucky actually; pipe burst right next to me. Now I need you to focus, though. I need you to keep close to me. I need you to walk like us, and look like us. Don't meet the foremen's eyes.”

Arthur grabbed Merlin's shoulder when he made to move. “Where do you plan to take me?”

“I need to hide you for the next twelve hours,” said Merlin, matter of factly. “So I'll be taking you to my place.”

“It's here?” Arthur asked, mouth hanging open. “People live underneath?”

“Yes, of course,” Merlin answered, dragging him along. “You didn't think we lived up above? In that ghost town on ground level?”

“And you can live here?” Arthur challenged. “Where it's stifling and there's no air... Even our dying sun is better than this.”

“It's not a choice; only a few remain on ground level and they need permits, ” said Merlin, muttering low. “Now shut up. Workers don't talk.”

When he realised they were back where he had started, in the power plant, Arthur complied and bowed his head. Mutely, he trailed after Merlin, fixing his stare on his shoes, crossing the space filled with grunting workers, who moaned and cried and sobbed as they went about the tasks set them, while he tried to blend in, fade.

He followed Merlin past rows and rows of control desks and posts, past the guards overseeing the teams of menials and brushing past numerous work stations.

Even though he did his level best to keep his head down, he couldn’t help but see what kept going on, how those people laboured till they were fully drained, dead on their feet, shadows of real men and women.

Finally, thankfully, they left the main plant behind, hurrying across a different sector that looked a little like a mine to Arthur.

Tubular props were bracing the overarching, curved walls for extra support, while the workers used single-pronged picks, shovels, hammers, wedges and drills, going at it like drones, without pause.

One of the miners drove an edged iron bar into an opening on the rock wall, while another held a lamp aloft so the first could see what he was doing. A pile of residue material was being loaded onto an overfull wheelbarrow by a group of boys who seemed hardly of an age to be so employed.

When they passed Sector Y, avoiding the guards stationed before a set of studded, reinforced double doors, Merlin tensed, quickening his pace.

Not long after this, they reached the workers' tenements and Merlin’s body language changed again, his posture relaxed; he allowed himself to slouch, rocking on the balls of his feet when he paused to get his breath back, finally throwing his head back to release a sigh.

Pause over, they walked a short distance further still and stopped in an artificial rectangular square overlooked by squat buildings. These were square concrete monsters, one identical to the other, that looked as though they were subdivided into flats.

Merlin entered one of these grey buildings, jogged up a rickety stair and past a creaking door, and pushed into one of the flats. It was just one room, boxlike, and painted light grey. There was one tiny window but no other source of ventilation. One bed had been pushed against the wall; a table and chair lined the other. There was no other furniture. It was bare and lifeless; damp and dreary. The wooden boards under his feet creaked when he moved.

“Stay here till I come back. It's going to be a while but don't get out, don't let yourself be seen.”

“Did I get you in trouble?” asked Arthur.

Merlin didn't answer. Just said, “Stay here. Make no noise. I've got to go.”

“Merlin...”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Merlin's shoulders drooped. “No need to. I had to, all right? I had to.” He paused, looked over his shoulders at the door, and shook his head. He was almost bouncing and quivering. “I’ll be back and I’ll get you out.” He faced about, sniffed loudly, and raced outside, almost bolting, leaving Arthur alone to sit on the bed and stare at the faceless walls.

****

For the first twenty minutes Arthur stayed put. He was in an alien environment and didn't know what to do with himself without invading Merlin's privacy. It was still very early however and he couldn't count on Merlin's returning for quite some time. So he stretched on the bed, on top of the rough woollen army-type blanket, and sought to sleep.

He succeeded for an hour or two but then his dreams were taken over by odd flashes of images: workers being swallowed whole by a fire spouting mouth that had serrated teeth, much like a saw, shadows moving in the corners, morphing into hulking creatures with twiggy, knotted arms that would attempt to snatch the unwary away.

Faceless bodies, arms reaching up towards the sky, the gaping mouth always in the background, limbs caught in the gears of a wringer.

All the images coming at him were distorted and crooked; walls tilted at precarious angles, colour washed away or bleeding red, angular shapes rotating in and out of focus.

He dreamt of an orgy, bodies piled upon bodies, but he couldn't distinguish their sex, only the frenzy, the madness, the hungry, reaching hands.

Mayhem and chaos, an angry totem looming over the horizon, rising and stepping over the multitudes. A monster. The world turning upside down and imploding.

He shot up in bed, swept a hand through his hair, breathing fast.

Even though he'd been told to make no noise, he started pacing to and fro, to and fro, the tenement flat so small he found himself running into the opposite wall very soon. He started again and then he noticed that one of the boards beneath his feet creaked, almost coming off.

Alerted to the fact now, he retraced his steps, trod over the same board and realised it was loose. He knelt, ran his knuckles along the edges, gave the plank a little push, right at its base, and it came partly off.

Knowing this wasn't exactly normal, Arthur peeked down and saw that there was something stashed under there. He shouldn't have pried. He should have put the plank back and sat on the bed, but he removed it fully, stuck his hand down and groped.

The hidden objects were square, solid: books. He lifted the top three and found they were old copies of classic novels. Why would someone hide books? Regular books? He read the spines, put them down and searched further. He found more books and different bundles of paper, held together by lengths of string.

He picked three of these bundles up and moved to sit on the bed. He undid the string and unrolled the first sheaf.

Avidly, he ran his eyes over the first one; it looked like a printed pamphlet, a call to arms. The title, in bold capitals and followed by an exclamation mark, said, “RISE AGAINST THE OPPRESSOR.”

The first lines briefly described the conditions of the workers, conditions that Arthur had just had a firsthand sample of; they were couched in simple language and were free of any embellishment.

However, more emphatically, the text went on to condemn these conditions as aberrations: _“the struggle against the authorities that allow them to exist is the only possible action that is to be taken. An end must be put to this! We are the oppressed and as such we must not only spread the word, denounce our tyrants, but rise against the system that would make victims of us all..._

Arthur stopped reading, paced again, then went back to the papers he'd found. _Put an end to this ruthless exploitation!_ another tract said.

One was titled _The Fall of the Planners_. There was more; Merlin owned spelling books as those Arthur had seen aimed at children and simple grammars that were similar to those Arthur had had back in the day, only the binding was made of cardboard rather than leather.

New reprints of old documents, one entitled the _Declaration des Droits de l'Homme_ , which Arthur had never seen before, were among Merlin's collection of hidden papers. He looked at the date, 1789, and marvelled at the boldness of those ideas; he marvelled even more when he thought of when they'd been formulated, and was disgusted to find that those ideals had been forgotten through the centuries.

Needing to understand, Arthur perused all the texts critically, juxtaposing concepts, those he'd been taught by his masters and his father and those he found cited in Merlin's pamphlets.

If he hadn't seen what was happening in the plant with his own two eyes he wouldn't have been moved by the words, wouldn't have believed them, but he'd seen and now he could accept them.

Much of what he was reading went right against what he'd been fed as true, and there were many more points that Arthur had never even considered because they'd never been put to him. And yet now he could see this mass of knowledge stretching out in front of him, waiting for him to parse it, to make sense of the discrepancies between what he'd been led to believe in, or rather ignore, and the reality he was dipping his toes in.

He was so taken with his reading, he forgot to be hungry or thirsty; he forgot that time was passing. It must have for at one point the door opened and Merlin asked, “What have you done? What are you doing?”

Arthur rose and faced Merlin. There was a swollen bruise around his temple that hadn't been there when Merlin had left in the morning. It was getting slowly purple. “What happened to you?” Arthur asked instead.

Merlin waved that away with a hand gesture and a harsh laugh. He cocked his eyebrow at the papers cahotically spread all over his bed.

“I walked over that loose board,” said Arthur. “That's a horrible hiding place, by the way.”

Merlin's eyebrow rose higher still. “Well, I didn't ask for your opinion on that,” he said, putting everything back where it belonged, sealing the loose board back in place. Next, he unceremoniously unbuttoned his overalls, revealing pale skin, as pale as Sophia's, marred by another fresh blotch of purple spreading over his clavicle. Unfazed by Arthur's presence, he bent and unlaced his boots, kicked them in a corner, then eased out of his working clothes.

Unlike Arthur, he had no undershirt to stop the suit from chafing against his skin; more, he didn't have any underwear on. So he crossed the room while naked, letting Arthur see a long body that was all angles and sharp defining lines, a body so thin his ribs could easily be counted.

To make up for that, Merlin had a wide set of shoulders and wiry arms; coltish legs, bony knees and pointed elbows completed the picture. He appeared underfed, but healthy still. Likely enough, he’d have looked stronger if he'd had to work less. His soft cock was hanging between his legs, pink, long, but not fat; in a way it looked harmless and fragile, dangerous and enticing. A little incongruous. The human body at its most basic juxtaposed to all those lofty ideals Arthur had been reading on all day. The two warred and met in the middle and merged in Arthur’s mind.

Having seen much gratuitous nudity, the display of Merlin’s flesh should have ranked as normal, have been unimpressive, yet Arthur gulped, heat flooding his face, spreading downwards, a low burn in his belly, a stirring in his own cock. Arthur had to will it down so as not to make a fool of himself and spook Merlin into the bargain. He was... grateful... He ought to be grateful for having been offered help; therefore he shouldn't be projecting his sudden onslaught of feeling onto Merlin, despite the low-key intimacy of this.

Unaware of what was going on in Arthur’s mind, Merlin took some clothes from a peg and hastily put them on. The trousers were the same Arthur had seen on him the other day. The pullover was, on the contrary, a little frayed but still doing its job.

“Merlin, really,” Arthur tried again, not focusing on Merlin's body anymore because his reaction to it was not what he was here for. “What happened to you?”

“I don't even know your name, do I?” said Merlin instead; his shoulders rose slightly as though he'd just sucked in air.

Arthur took a step towards him, slow, smiling. “Arthur. I'm Arthur.”

“All right, Arthur,” Merlin said. “Shift's over. So you'll have to follow me if you want to get out of this place and go back to wherever you came from.” Merlin took him in from head to foot, inclining his head as he did so. His scrutiny wasn't quite done, when he added, “Usually we go to the ground level market after work. To see what we can get our hands on.” Merlin lowered his gaze and continued talking, not quite meeting Arthur's eyes. “Just take off that blue bracelet.”

“Why?” asked Arthur, running his fingers over it.

“You chose the wrong colour,” said Merlin, moving to ransack one of his old desk's drawers.

Arthur turned and said, “How can it be the wrong colour?”

Merlin didn't reply. “Ah, here it is,” he said, having retrieved an ancient, half-broken white bracelet from it. It was just like the one he was currently wearing. With a satisfied smile, Merlin span on his heels and stepped close to Arthur, fastening the bracelet around his wrist. His fingertips were cool on Arthur's skin, his touch there and gone, a fleeting thing that raised gooseflesh on Arthur's arm. Oddly enough, Arthur felt a need to swallow, but his throat stayed dry. He needed to focus; there were questions that just had to be asked, but his mind went blank until Merlin shifted backwards.

“What's the difference?” Arthur asked. “Why is white okay, but blue isn't?” Arthur thought furiously, trying to understand what the bracelets meant, putting together the pieces of this unreasonable puzzle. “They're colour coded,” he muttered after a while.

“Yes,” Merlin owned. “They are; you're so bright, Arthur.” Merlin flashed him a facetious half-grin that was too soon gone.

“What does white mean?”

“That I'm a day-shift machine operator,” said Merlin. “Not qualified.”

“And blue?”

Merlin opened his mouth to speak and shook his head. “It doesn't matter, does it? You'll never come here again.”

Arthur shook his head vigorously; his fringe danced on his forehead. “No.”

Merlin flashed him a puzzled look. “What do you mean 'no'. Look, if you hold your life cheaply,” Merlin began.

Seeing as Merlin was on a roll, Arthur interrupted him. “I want to see you again. I need to see you again.”

“You're mad.”

“No,” said Arthur. “I'm not mad. I want to see you again. And I want to do something about what I saw today.”

Merlin threw his hands up in the air. “And what could you possibly do?” Merlin asked. “What can you do when you don't even know what you're talking about?”

“I don't need to know the particulars to see that's something's wrong with what's happening down here,” he argued. “Any man could see that. I can't stand by with this knowledge.”

“It's dangerous,” said Merlin, “this— this could get you killed.” It was a hiss, Merlin was worrying his hands now and he'd started moving about frantically. “ “It will, you know. Why, why would you even... do this? As far as I know, you come from paradise. Up above. And you'd do this. Why?”

This answer was easy. “Because it's right.”

A slight lifting at the corners of Merlin's mouth signalled his change of heart. “I— I can respect that,” he said. He stopped pacing and drifted closer to Arthur. Arthur bowed his head, but Merlin kept on studying him, nearly giving him a smile, searching his eyes as if he was seeking some kind of answer. So prompted, Arthur stood with his legs apart and head held high. He was about to lift his gaze and return Merlin's look, when a voice wafted over, saying, “Merlin, Gaius has stuff for us to smuggle in.”

The voice was followed by a brown-haired, ruddy-faced man whom Arthur wished gone the moment he strode in as if he owned the place.

“Who's that?” said the new arrival.

Merlin danced out of Arthur's reach.

“A friend, Will,” said Merlin.

Arthur exhaled.

“He's not,” said Will, narrowing his eyes. “Never seen him before.”

“We need to go, Arthur,” hedged Merlin, grabbing him by the wrist.

Arthur didn't let himself be told twice; he didn't want to cause Merlin any trouble and he didn't have the least idea who this Will was, whether he could be trusted.

“No,” said Will. “Merlin, I've known you a long time I can tell when you’re lying.”

Merlin shrank in on himself, posture changing ever so subtly, turning his body away from Will while still heading — and tugging Arthur towards — the door.

Will said, “My God, he's... he's from above, isn't he?”

Merlin stopped a step short of the door and rounded on Will. “Will you lower your voice? I told you, he's okay. He's okay. Now I'm getting him out so he can be safe. But he's okay.”

“How do you know, Merl? How do you even know?” asked Will in a challenging tone.

Arthur stood silent. Even if he protested his good faith, it was not a given thing that Will would believe him or think that Merlin wasn't mad for gambling their lives on Arthur’s trustworthyness.

“Why would he be here then? To do what?” asked Merlin, getting in Will's face.

Will pushed Merlin back against the door. “Think about it, Merlin. Just think before you decide that everyone can be trusted.”

“No,” said Merlin, gnawing on his lips; a trapped, terrified look appeared in his eyes and then was gone. “That's not why.”

“He'll rat you out.”

Arthur grew confused. “I won't tell anyone Merlin helped by hiding me,” he offered.

Will, however, went off on his own tangent. “Then why _you_ , Merlin? Uh? Tell me. Why you?”

“He knows nothing,” said Merlin defensively, sparking something in Arthur, something that couldn't even be called a suspicion. “Now, I need to get him out before they get to him.”

Merlin's hand sneaked towards the handle and he turned it. “If you make much more noise, you'll be the one to have grassed on us,” said Merlin, stepping out of the room. Will didn't stop him.

Looking to keep Merlin in sight, Arthur brushed past him, and Will deliberately collided against him. “If you do anything to him, don’t think I won’t kill you. Wherever you’re from.”

“I don’t intend to do him any harm,” said Arthur so low only Will could hear him. He hadn’t meant to but it had come out as a challenging sort of growl that wasn’t defusing anything. Aware of this, he shouldered past Will till he was facing the door, then turned his head to the side and said, “This is not the last you’ve seen of me,” and slid out, catching up with Merlin, who was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs.

Since it was time, they attempted to make it back to the power plant and the main lifts, yet this time around there were some subtle differences to be observed even though they were following the same road as before. For one there were more people around; their shuffling gait and dragging of their feet reassured Arthur as to their being too exhausted to care about his presence but he was still a little unnerved by their increased numbers, holding his breath as he strode onwards. Besides, even though nobody was inquisitive about him, he had to pay attention to the far more alert supervisors, guards and controllers. The quality of their work was different and they still had it in them to harbour suspicion.

“No worries, this is normal. It’s shift change,” murmured Merlin, once they were almost past the tenements. “Some of them are making their way back ‘home’.”

“They seem...”

“Sucked dry?”

“Mmm,” muttered Arthur, eyes on his shoes.

“They tell me I’ll be just like them soon enough.”

“Never.”

Merlin’s lips quirked.

They had been slogging on in silence, when Arthur asked, “What are you smuggling in, Merlin?”

“I shouldn’t really tell you,” Merlin said, pushing him towards a steep incline.

Arthur stopped in his tracks and said, “I can slip in and out. I did it once. I can do it again.”

“Medicines,” said Merlin, starting walking again. “You must have realised that sanitary conditions down here are what they are.”

Arthur hummed to himself. “So?”

“So,” Merlin said, “I’m not trusting you with that.” There was a pause, then Merlin’s voice rang again, different, lighter, “Yet.”

They’d reached the power plant and were about to make the hallway that would lead them to the lifts, Merlin saying, “Real bracelets have chips that are checked on the way in and out—”, when Arthur heard the deafening roar.

He veered round and watched as great balls of fire originating from one of the massive valves surged up like clouds, enveloping everything in their path: men, tools, machines. All Arthur saw after that was red, like an inferno made of limbs, steel, flames and the smoke that was stretching upwards, suffocating and acrid.

There was a second blast, objects were being bathed with fiery tongues; terrifyingly, the ground under their feet seemed to shake to its foundations as if an earthquake was taking place. Raw, infernal screams pierced Arthur’s eardrums and a terrible smell clogged his senses.

Another crash and Merlin leapt towards him so quickly Arthur had no time to guess what he was about, knocking Arthur down and rolling on top of him, covering Arthur with his body, shielding his head. He held tight, hands clamping down viciously at Arthur’s sides; he grunted and Arthur guessed some flying object had hit him, but however much Arthur pummelled his flanks to dislodge him, pounding even, Merlin wouldn’t be moved till they heard a siren, and Merlin braced himself on his elbows, looking down at him. Soot was covering the side of his face and Arthur wanted to reach out and run the pad of his thumb all along his jaw. Really wanted to.

“Fire brigade,” Merlin said, not moving yet, chest rising and falling, legs twined with Arthur’s. “Fire brigade,” and then Arthur felt his weight go lax on him.

****

Percival flew Arthur to the landing pad built on top of the main governmental building.

From there, via a maze of stairs and corridors, Arthur was escorted directly to the anteroom to his father's office.

Once seated there, the beige and ochre tones dominating the space soothing his senses, he waited for more than fifteen minutes, till one of his father's secretaries rose from the desk she was staffing and knocked on his father's door.

When she was back, she said, “I told him it was rather urgent.”

She was eyeing him critically and Arthur did his best to act as though he hadn’t noticed.

“Thank you, Madge,” he said, squeezing the hand she'd put on his arm before stepping in.

Father was seated at his desk, the vast expanse of the city visible behind him. From here you could catch glimpses of most corners of the brilliant high-rise of Camelot. Funnily enough, Arthur could remember taking in the same imposing landscape as a child, perched on his father's arm. He remembered being told that all of what he was seeing would be his one day, that he would rule it even though Arthur hadn’t understood how that was possible since his father was not a king. He was well versed in fairytales and knew that ministers were not the same as kings. Even now, after all this years, Arthur could recollect how he'd reacted to that odd sentence. He'd pointed upwards with his index finger and asked, “Can the skyscrapers reach the sky?”

“No, Arthur,” Father had said. “No.”

Today Father shot from behind his desk and asked him, “What happened to you?”

“I was involved in an explosion,” Arthur said, touching the stitches standing out angrily on his forehead. The cut had been small but deep and the medic treating him had deemed suturing the wound necessary. It still throbbed a little but Merlin had protected him from much worse.

“How? What?” Father asked, at his most inarticulate. All sounds were hushed. Nobody was typing away anymore; Father's personal assistant craftily ambled away, feigned nonchalance directing his movements, and his underlings stopped taking notes and crunching numbers.

“I was at the underground power plant,” said Arthur in one breath. “There was an explosion and a fire, Father.”

“How on earth did you get there?” Father whipped around. “How was my son allowed to get there?” he asked of his personal assistant, who’d almost made the door.

The man, cornered, lifted both his hands, palm first, and shook his head.

“Father,” said Arthur. “That's not the point. The point is.... The conditions down there... People can't work like that. They're... drained. At the end of their thether. Slaves. Children are being employed... Father, after the fire help came too late for some. People died because of a malfunction.” He knew he wasn't postulating much of a case, his exposition disorderly and chaotic, but he was still too wired to sound rational. He couldn't just yet.

“Arthur,” Father said sternly, using the same tone of voice he had adopted when Arthur hadn’t been able to reach up to his waist. “There are regulations in place designed to keep you out of places like that. Access to the plants is forbidden because those sites can be dangerous, more so to someone like you.”

“Forbidden?”

“Yes,” Father confirmed. “I was sure you knew. Access is restricted to workers and supervisors only. No good can come of mingling with them anyway. The workers would get ideas...”

“So you knew what was going on....”

“I rule this city and through it this state, Arthur,” Father said, moving to lean against his desk, hands splayed behind him on the rich mahogany. “I approve all regulations. The circumstances are regrettable, especially since you came to harm, but things are as they are for a reason. With the sun dying, we need to produce as much energy as possible to keep the city going. Those unskilled hands you saw are the ones we're willing to sacrifice to obtain the labour needed to keep us afloat.”

“But,” Arthur protested, heartbeat skipping, memories flashing before his eyes. “That's inhuman. What they have to go through... It's appalling. And how do you even begin to choose who ends up there?”

“Arthur,” Father told him. “That is seditious talk right there. If you weren't my son, you'd be in a prison cell by now.” He seemed to calm down a little there, voice less like shards of glass. “You're still young. You'll learn one day that a lofty end justifies the means.”

Arthur shook his head repeatedly, mouth half-open. “There must be another solution.”

“In the short term?” Father asked. “No, but go ahead if you want to sacrifice the present generation to your ideals. I'm sure one day scientists will provide the answers. In the meanwhile, should I tell the productive population of Camelot, the thriving minds of Albion, that they should be sacrificed in order to protect a few unskilled hands?”

“We shouldn't be the ones deciding,” Arthur insisted, gesticulating wildly to illustrate his point.

“Let me provide a scenario,” father said cuttingly, fixing his tie. “Who'd you save, Arthur? A doctor who can save others or a worker with no training who can hardly understand what he's doing if not directed step by step?”

“It's not that easy, Father!” Arthur said, clutching at his temples with his fists. “If you'd only come down with me and see what lengths those people go to to better themselves, to have a decent life, while they work to the point of exhaustion... It's not that simple, Father. Or clear cut. If you're saying that the choice to keep them like that is deliberate, then what’s happening is our fault... We ought to repair the wrong.”

Father pushed away from his desk, violating Arthur's personal space. “I forbid you to go there again. I forbid you to concern yourself with this. The workers are kept underground for a reason. There’s an _us_ and a _them_ and the two shall stay separate entities. You will not interfere!”

Arthur said, “I can't not,” making an effort not to cower, not to swallow, not to bow his head or step backwards. “What I've seen...”

“That's an order, Arthur,” Father snapped. “If you want to continue calling yourself my son, you'll obey me.”

Arthur stuck his chest out, looked past Father's shoulders and said, “Very well, Father.”

Father inclined his head once, mouth a thin line. “You're dismissed.”

Arthur nodded to himself and strode to the door, sweaty fingertips wrapped around the doorknob.

“You won't go spreading lies about what you've witnessed,” said Father, turning to signal to his assistant to come closer. “It's against the law and therefore punishable.”

“Yes, Father,” Arthur said, before he propelled himself out of the office he'd known so well. Bile rose in his mouth and made everything taste bitter.

Part Two

The door had just closed on Arthur when Uther ordered his team of assistants and secretaries out of the room. All background noise ceased and everybody craned their necks, lifted their heads or cupped their ears as if they hadn't heard just right.

“I told you to get out,” Uther thundered. “And get Halig here!”

This time Uther's employees were quick to depart, scuttling out of sight as they'd been ordered.

Left alone, fitted carpet muffling his steps, Uther paced the length of the room, his bright, tidy office that allowed a glimpse of what he'd built through the years, the vast city that spread itself out before his eyes.

Chin supported on his palm, Uther paused before the framed maps of Camelot hanging on the alcove surface opposite the window wall. The frames were golden bronze and the maps had been made to look antiquated even though they traced the latest building and renovations development that had made Camelot the pearl of Albion: the aerial monorail; the hanging pleasure gardens that cascaded and rippled from level to level while hanging above the main thoroughfare; the new government skyscrapers with their emphasis on their horizontal streamlined looks.

This was Uther's achievement; this was what he had offered the people of Albion, the residents of their airy capital city, built to dominate the sky. Its foundations were not marked on the map; there was no sign of them on any official document, so how had Arthur found a way into the plant? How had he come so close to be killed?

Uther's vision swam for a moment; deep large breaths became needed for him to recover his balance though his riotous heartbeat raced on for a few more moments.

He was leaning against the wall, fists curled into themselves, fingernails biting painfully into his palms, when there was a perfunctory knock on the door and the bulky, round man Uther knew as Halig and Halig only entered the room.

“You wanted me,” he grunted.

Uther straightened and pulled at his jacket. “Indeed,” he said, battling for composure. He blinked twice and moved to sit behind his square desk. “I did.”

“What do you want me to do?” Halig asked, no preamble.

“I need you to trail my son, Arthur,” Uther said, not explaining the whys and wherefores. “I want to know where he goes and when. Who he associates with.”

“And nothing more than that?” Halig asked. “No—” He used his large, fat hand to gesture. “No more than spying on him? That's not my line of business.”

Uther rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I realise that. For now I merely want you to follow him and report to me. Not a word to anybody. I don't want my son in the hands of the secret police. I can pull him out, but there are interests to guard and now is not the time for a scandal.”

Halig made another guttural noise Uther took for assent. “Interference?”

“None whatsoever for now,” Uther said, opening a drawer and extracting an envelope full of banknotes. He dropped it on the desk surface as though the contents didn’t amount to a small fortune.

Halig hesitated before stepping forward and picking the envelope up. “I suppose these are untraceable?” He counted the money greedily, slowly, as though he had difficulty adding the sum up in his head.

“Of course,” said Uther. “I have more interest than you in making our transactions as anonymous as possible.”

“Good,” said Halig in a throaty, abrasive voice. “You'll have my first report in a few days.”

He'd wobbled over to the door by the time Uther called out to say, “Don't do anything without my express consent.”

****

They were sitting on Merlin's bed for lack of better or preferable seating, more of Merlin's pamphlets, older ones, more argumentative ones, scattered around them. Merlin had his back to the headboard, his shoeless feet stretched in front of him though one knee was slightly bent. He was hugging his midriff and looking at Arthur's profile, Arthur sitting perpendicularly to him.

“So I guessed right; you taught yourself how to read and write?” Arthur asked.

“My mum began teaching me when I was little,” Merlin said in a quiet voice. “I think I was five or six. She would sit me in her lap, a book on the table, and she'd show me pages that had printed letters on them, but there'd be pictures as well.” He smiled gently to himself and his eyes grew softer or the light in them did. His voice grew hushed as he described that moment in time, that part of his childhood. “She'd say how good I was if I got something right but she’d make me play as well, with the pictures, I mean. I was forever asking inane questions. Really stupid, insistent ones. Even though I had to learn the rest by myself, that's how I got started.”

Arthur turned his face to the side. “It sounds lovely.”

Merlin sat up, grimaced, fingers curling as he clutched his side. “You speak as though...”

“I never knew my mother?” Arthur brusquely pre-empted him. “If you were thinking that, you'd have it right.”

Merlin's face bloomed, twin spots of red over his cheeks. His eyes were growing watery. “I'm so sorry... I mean. I'm sorry, Arthur.”

“You feel sorry for me?” Arthur waved a hand at his surroundings, and then arched an eyebrow at Merlin's bound chest. “You?” his voice broke.

Merlin put a hand on top of Arthur's, looked down at the tangle created by their fingers. “You have a right to feel what you feel. Just because you've seen people suffering, it doesn't mean that you suffered any less... That it’s any less true.”

“You saved my life,” Arthur told Merlin. And there it was: no more, no less than a statement of fact.

Merlin looked softly at him. “That's debatable.”

“You did a stupid, heroic thing out there the other day,” Arthur said, looking at the blank wall opposite. “Admittedly more stupid than heroic, and I don't know why, and you were lucky to get out of that with a broken rib, but—” The words had rushed out till he had little breath left, for no reason at all too, but then he forced himself to put what he was feeling into words, the obligation of it a weight on his shoulders. “Thank you.”

Merlin blinked slowly, the hint of a smile rippling at the corners of his lips. “I did it because I like you, okay? Pure instinct.”

Arthur's blunt nails gouged his thighs even through the cloth of his trousers, breathing as painful as if he was trying it underwater, lungs bursting.

Merlin patted his hand once more, his fingers having never left Arthur's, and said, “Since you're so interested in the theory and the pamphlets, why don't you come to a meeting? Join us?”

Arthur frowned. “What kind of meeting?”

Merlin's chuckled softly, eyes shining with the strength of what seemed to be mixed emotions, some manner of teasing in the quiet laughter. “What kind of meeting do you think it is?”

Arthur opened his mouth to provide an answer but Merlin did that for him before he could voice his suspicions. “A secret one.”

“Like a secret rally?”

“Yes. A secret rally where you speak freely about...”

“You can tell me.”

“Speak against the owners, the planners,” Merlin began, rubbing insistently at his neck. “We make a case for ourselves, to let people see that there might be alternatives.”

“Against people like me then,” Arthur said, pushing himself to his feet.

“No,” Merlin protested, fire in his eyes, voice shaking, his tone was so forceful.

And it was strange how Merlin could go from quirkily benevolent to impassioned all in one breath, as though this was what was inside him, a volcano simmering beneath gentle and calm waters, neither a contradiction, these two sides of him neatly balanced. “More like against people like Uther Pendragon!” Merlin said, gaining his feet as well. “And all his ministers. People who tread on other people, treating them like... like they're animals. Like we’re animals. Worse perhaps. And there's more and there's¬— And you're not like that. I know that.”

Arthur reeled, blood rushing to his head. He felt dizzy, like a caught thing. “I don't want to be Uther Pendragon,” Arthur said, drained of everything.

Merlin nodded, touched his shoulder and nodded again. “Let's go then.”

Making his way to the door, Merlin grabbed a cardigan, straining to pull it on till Arthur helped him into it. Arthur felt Merlin wince when he lifted his arm.

“Thank you,” Merlin said softly, leading him outside, where it was dark.

The rally was convened at a secret location on ground level that could be reached by walking past squalid slums and shabby dwellings and thanks to vast amounts of stealing past controllers and the authorities policing Camelot at night. Arthur’s father’s guard.

Thankfully, the darkness helped them and they reached their destination without being stopped by anyone.

An old, abandoned theatre in a dilapidated sector of lower Camelot had been turned into some kind of auditorium Merlin told him, once they sighted a partially gutted building that sported paneless windows and was listing to the side.

Two rough men wearing street clothes but also the signs of their toil by way of serial tattoos and visibly calloused hands and gnarled, bent fingers sat on either side of a rickety double door secured by a lock.

When they saw Arthur and Merlin, they barred their progress. They stood, stepped close to one another so their shoulders formed a wall and barked, “Password.”

Merlin grinned at them, fearless. “Oh, come on. You’ve seen me here before.”

"Grab him so I can hit him,” one of the two men said. “Maybe he won’t act funny then.”

“You know who I am,” said Merlin, rolling his eyes when threatened. “I found antibiotics for your wife.”

Arthur stepped between the bigger of the men and Merlin. The former growled, a vein pulsing in his forehead, and cracked his knuckles by yanking on his fingers. “You don’t look much like one of ours,” he said, addressing Arthur.

Merlin said hurriedly, “Payne,” and just like that they were let in, although reluctantly.

Inside there was a stage made of wooden planks, the old, hole ridden and dusty velvet curtains that must have been there since those old theatre days draping it decadently. A podium had been placed right at its centre; an old fashioned lamp was throwing light on the lectern towering upon it, though the podium itself was for now empty.

The room itself, however, wasn’t.

It was full of people, full echoes and sounds, men and women whispering, arguing, smothering each other’s voices, discussing. Arthur could hear the rustling of clothing, the sound of feet being shuffled in place. A swirling flock of children ran right past the stage, heavy footfalls like thunder, and settled in the back, older attendees reproaching them loudly for taking part in silly games.

What struck Arthur was the fact that the people amassed here were not the silent, shuffling non-entities that laboured mindlessly down in the plant. They were animated, vivacious, loud and it was like a flare going up in the darkness, a ray of hope bursting through the shadows of Arthur’s new world. The heat, the closeness of other bodies to his, was making him sway in place though it also heartened him.

He was starting to feel faint, sweating and leaning into Merlin, when the first speaker took his place on the makeshift dais, more of an oaken wedge-shaped thing than anything else. For a little less than an hour the speaker, a woman in her thirties who looked haggard but vey spirited, harangued the crowd, working them up to a pitch while holding her fists up to her eyes.

When she was done, there was a loud burst of clapping, deafening in its suddenness.

“That’s Forridel,” Merlin whispered in his ear. “She’s one of the best leaders in our workers’ movement.”

“She’s good,” Arthur said, taking in the galvanised crowd, listening in to the growing buzz developing amidst the bystanders.

The second one to take the podium was someone Arthur knew: Will. He began his speech by saying. “Look at us,” pausing and continuing by adding, “Look at them.”

“I told him to tamp down the rhetoric,” Merlin muttered and Arthur smiled and bumped shoulders with him.

Will, meanwhile, continued. “They are rich. There’s more though. We’re not allowed to see how stinking rich they are because they keep us segregated in a pit. We go hungry. We have no clothes. And our children are sent to work when they can’t even spell out their names or the easiest words. They’re not even old enough to do their laces properly. We grow up like that. And work so hard that we can’t think straight anymore. And if we’re ill, well, we die. There’s nothing but serving them. Bow your head. Say ‘yes’. Serve the leaders. Crawl on till you die. They don’t. They hover above us in that city up in the clouds.” Here he pointed upwards. “And they look mighty fine, don’t they?”

Will paused. There was more clapping, yells of assent, and some disgruntled mumbling. “So what should we do to change things? What? The solution to our problems is revolt. Armed revolt!”

The old theatre exploded in a fury of sound.

“We’re the masses!” Will shouted, spotting Arthur in the crowd and not taking his eyes off him. “By that definition we’re more than them. If we just wake up, we’ll overthrow them. Send’ em packing.”

The mood grew heated; each sentence was met with cheering.

Drawing his speech to a close, Will finished working this crowd he seemed to know so well, the rising cadence of the voices making it up stressing his success.

There was a round of loud applause and comments could be heard from all corners: a few of the people standing next to Arthur agreed vehemently with Will, calling out for blood and death and an end to tyranny.

Some others said, “We want a revolution, all right! But no bloodshed. I’m not staining my hands.”

“So you want your children to live as you do, hey Mike?” a voice echoed throughout the auditorium.

There was some commotion on the podium and another speaker was ushered in by an old, grey haired man Arthur remembered having seen somewhere else before.

The new speaker had a smoother voice than Will’s, a gentle smile and an easy manner. His first act was raising both his hands in a placating gesture that served to quiet some of his audience down.

“My name is Aglain,” he said. “And many of you know me as a fellow worker.”

Merlin was the first to clap at that and a few of those present started a patterned chant upon seeing him that almost sent Arthur into a trance.

Aglain just continued on, “We all know that things must be changed; that the way of the planners, the way of our Prime Minister, is not the right way when the multitudes of Albion are considered. I think that no one inside this room would disagree.”

Aglain got vocal confirmation of that.

“And yet I would advocate a form of rebellion that doesn’t involve bloodshed. I plead for a kind of change that will allow the working classes to go free without resorting to killing. Our revolution begins with the spreading of the word and finishes with us taking responsibility for the way we shape our future. We can uproot evil without becoming evil ourselves.”

“What about those that disappear, Aglain?” someone called out. “What about the bluebracelets?”

“They are our freedom,” Aglain said.

“How?” someone from the back shouted. “They’re thrown in Section Y and never resurface.”

“Some magic users hide and are not in Uther’s power,” said Aglain calmly. “They’re free. Protected. The time will come for them to rise and take action with us.”

“They’re a myth,” a heckler call. “They all died, if they ever existed! They were all killed.”

“I tell you,” Aglain said, addressing the sceptics. “They _are_. They’re among us and powerful enough to change the course of destiny.”

Arthur was trying to make heads or tails of what he was hearing, trying to make sense of the idea of magic still existing, when Merlin’s fingers clamped around his wrist quite painfully and Merlin, tottering a little, pale as a sheet, eyes a little glassy, said, “It’s too hot in here. Let’s get out.”

“But—” Arthur said. “I need to understand. They said magic was—”

“It’s too hot in here. I don’t feel okay.”

Arthur could see that Merlin was right. There was a great mass of people in the improvised auditorium; men and women were jostling each other, pushing forward, dragging several others behind or forward according to their momentum.

The pulsating chants of the bystanders were hypnotising, their breath hot on the nape of Arthur’s back. Someone’s elbow was digging in his side and a woman’s locks tickled his nose. Merlin couldn’t be better off and he was still ailing somewhat.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll come again.”

“Thank you,” Merlin exhaled, tugging Arthur by the sleeve of his jacket and fighting his way out of the auditorium. “Thank you.”

Only when they were outside did Merlin lose his deathly pallor. “Sorry about that,” he said, looking up at the starry sky, breath dissolving in a puff of vapour.

Arthur’s “You shouldn’t be,” response was drowned by the noise of a gate clunking shut and the subsequent barking of an angry dog.

****

Uther Pendragon’s villa, built in the suburbs of Camelot, was as airy and whitewashed as Pendragon's business quarters in central Camelot were. The angular, balanced geometric shapes of the furniture, the lacquered surfaces, the curved front furniture pieces and the shagreened door handles made everything seem rarefied, elegant. The ubiquitous burnished mirrors, the chrome hardware surfaces and the polished glass partitions looking over an orderly garden that was being pruned by an army of gardeners swarming like bees were all a testament to Pendragon's wealth.

Halig lowered his head when he entered his boss' studio, fixing his gaze on the shoes that had left a trail of dirt on one of Pendragon's precious carpets. He grinned and squinted, then lifted his head to meet the eyes of his employer.

Pendragon was bathed in the light streaming in from the main window, reclining on a sofa whose corners were rounded, a kind of sectional that bent around the window, forming a very odd shape. “What have you found, Halig?”

Halig said, “I followed the young man to a secret meeting. One of those we’ve talked about before. He listened to a number of speakers.”

“Which ones?” Uther asked.

“I had to steal in by climbing a section of the caved-in roof and steal downstairs, so my vantage point was not perfect.”

“But you're sure he was there?”

“Sure,” confirmed Halig. “I saw him with my own eyes. The only speaker I could identify was William Ealdor, but I can't say for sure that your son was there for him. He might have attended to listen to one of the others.”

“Did you gather news on these activists’ seditious plots?”

“Not as such, sir. I wasn't there for that and it was just an endless stream of talk. No fixed plans were made.”

Uther locked his jaw and flipped the pages of a glossy magazine that he’d been holding open on his knees. “Did my son spend much time with those people? Did he make it back home at all?”

“He went on four separate nights,” Halig answered. He'd noted down the key facts and the route the younger Pendragon had taken. “He's found out about the Chandell Street entrance, sir. I wasn't able to follow him inside the building he visits the most, a tenement close to Sector D, without being discovered, but I know he spent the night.”

“So I take it there's someone he's doing this for, ” Pendragon said in a cold voice. “My son is an idealist at heart; he follows his duty, but his sense of what his duty is takes a more defined shape when there's someone he can defend.”

Halig grunted, dissatisfied. “I can't say for sure. He was with a man at one point. Then I saw him talking to a woman. He's giving out money too, that I can tell. And food.”

Pendragon laughed low in his chest. “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur,” he began, as though the young man was there and not Halig. “I see how things stand,” Pendragon continued once he’d recovered from his laughing fit. “And there's something I want you to do.”

“As long as I'm paid.”

Uther Pendragon arched an eyebrow and it locked into place that way. “Whenever weren’t you?”

“Just making sure.”

“Well,” Uther considered. “I understand your solicitude.” The sneer that accompanied that statement would have been demeaning for Halig, had Halig had honour to cherish and nurture. But he'd shed that a long time ago and he'd done that with no qualm, so it was easy to just leer a bit now, as was expected of him.

Pendragon continued, “We want to make a statement. Something that will encourage my son’s new friends to give up their current pursuits and re-orient them.” Pendragon paused briefly, long enough to wet his lips and adopt a flat tone. “Something that will make them see reason one way or the other. Something memorable or that can be used to our advantage. Something that will stay with Arthur for the rest of his life.”

“Responsibility.”

“Indeed,” said Pendragon, casting aside his magazine and moving across the room deliberately slowly, something of a saunter. He took a picture off the wall, revealing a safe. Deftly, he punched in a series of numbers Halig had no intention of tracking— being no idiot — on the key pad and extracted a wad of banknotes held together by a burgundy rubber band. He set it on the bureau next to him and said, “Nothing too obvious, of course.”

****

“Two crates?” asked Will, looking dubiously at the wooden boxes. “Gaius, we can't get these two on the lifts without being noticed. It's not like stuffing vials or pills in your pockets.”

“I know, Will,” said Gaius. “Unfortunately, I've heard reports of infection spreading in Sector D and C. This looks as if it's a large quantity, but it won't be once we've taken into account the number of sick people.”

“It must be got in,” said Arthur.

Merlin agreed with him. “Freya's developed a fever. She needs meds. I was thinking, maybe the Balor caves. They share some shafts with the T sector mines. And once we're there, we're really in.”

Will's eyes blazed in a way that didn't seem too conciliating to Arthur. “You're going to listen to him!” he exclaimed, as though he couldn't believe his own ears. “He's an outsider. He's one of them. And you want to do what he tells you?”

Merlin ambled towards him, squeezed his shoulder. “Arthur's a good man,” he said. “He's been helping us, hasn't he? He could have chosen not to. Nobody told him to. He could be... I don't know, partying it up, not risking his life helping us.”

“You accepted me,” said Gaius. “Despite my occupation. You should extend the same courtesy to Arthur.”

“Gaius, that's different,” said Will. “We know Pendragon forced you. We know. But we know next to nothing about him.” He pointed his thumb backwards towards Arthur.

Gaius levelled a pointed stare at Arthur, cocking an eyebrow.

Arthur coughed and lifted his shoulders, hoping the gesture would carry his meaning.

Still gazing at Arthur, Gaius addressed Will. “You're aware of my less than pristine past,” he said. “Give Arthur who is, I'm sure, far less guilty than me, the benefit of the doubt.”

A muscle in Will's jaw locked, but he said, “All right. All right.” It was more of a mumble than true acceptance but he'd stopped protesting. Nonetheless, he shifted his gaze onto Arthur. “But if one of us gets in trouble because of you. If you're not what you seem, you'll have to deal with me.”

“Enough, Will,” snapped Merlin. “That's enough posturing for one day. The truth is that our friends are ill and need these meds. You may or may not like Arthur, but we need to get them the stuff, and the cave option seems feasible. I'm trying it.”

“I'm with you,” said Arthur, searching Merlin's eyes. He was rewarded with a flash of a smile before Merlin grew serious and determined again.

Soon everybody had agreed with Merlin, Arthur feeling unaccountably warm when he witnessed that.

Before long they were making plans and poring over maps, questioning some members of Merlin's smuggler group as to what they knew about guard shifts and access to means of locomotion that would allow for an easier transport of their secret ware.

Forridel said, “If we wait till Tuesday, we can co-opt a delivery lorry, hide our crates among the official ones and...”

“No,” said Merlin. “An official transport would be checked and rechecked.”

Considering the options that had been presented, Arthur said, “We should make the crates smaller.”

“And how do you propose doing that?” Will asked, snorting. “Using magic?”

“No,” Arthur snipped. “We open them and split the contents into smaller sacks. Then we sneak into the caves. One of us every hour or so, over a couple of days beginning tonight, so we alert no one to our doings. Better than risking police checks on sanctioned transports.”

“I'm with Arthur,” said Merlin, considering the crates and humming.

Will propped a fist on his hip, threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, of course. Merlin would. Because Merlin only has eyes for Arthur now. It's Arthur here and Arthur there. Scratch that itch, Merlin. Maybe that way you'll get rational again.”

At that Merlin physically recoiled and drew back from them all to go slump in a corner. His eyes had become round and watery; there was a wounded look in them when he said, “We'd better get started. Make the smaller packages.” His voice had stayed steady but a shaft of defiance lit his eyes. “We want to be done well before the four am shift tonight.”

The others set to work; even Will, who did so while grumbling.

Arthur crossed over to Merlin and put his hand on his sharp cheek. Merlin hadn't been sleeping much these days, what between his shifts and his secret nighttime activities. Charcoal smudges rimmed his eyes; his cheekbones had become even more prominent than before and Arthur could see that Merlin held himself upright by dint of his obdurate will.

“We should make plans,” Merlin told him. “Get back to work.”

Everybody, Forridel, Dayra, Will, had been doing exactly that. Arthur trusted he could have a minute to talk to Merlin.

“You're doing great,” Arthur told him. “You're being brilliant.”

“The idea was yours.”

Arthur felt like laughing but he abstained. He ran the pad of his thumb across Merlin's cheek, down his jaw, feeling the stubble and the hot skin beneath.

“You're the heart,” Arthur said.

Merlin narrowed his eyes for a moment as though he couldn't make heads or tails of what Arthur was saying, although to Arthur it made perfect sense. Merlin was like a bright fire that danced and sparked and burned ever so bright, his strength and enthusiasm elemental, simple, infective. “I'm just good at planning.”

“You don't know, do you?” Merlin asked.

“What should I know?

Merlin turned his head and his lips brushed against Arthur's wrist. “That knowing that you care about us changed things for me.”

“Merlin.”

“Made me... want to do more. Hope”

“I say we get going,” said Will. “If we want to do this tonight.”

They'd divided the contents of the crates and split them into smaller packages, most of them bundles that were quite light when lifted.

“I'll go first said,” Forridel, while all the others picked up one or two bundles and stuffed them into their coats and jackets. This done, they all filed out of Gaius' surgery to go and scatter so they wouldn't form a compact group that could be easily spotted by the state police.

Before he'd quite made the door, package secured among the folds of his overcoat, the others out of sight, Gaius stopped Arthur. “Arthur, you should tell them that you're Uther's son.”

Arthur's eyes grew wider but he kept calm and said, “I will, Gaius. I promise I will. But you've seen how Will reacted to me being from ‘above’. I don't want that. I want to fight for them, Gaius. What difference would my name make?”

“Very poetic,” Gaius tutted. “But I dare say you can trust most of them. Tell Merlin at the very least. Merlin's interest in you is fairly... Let me merely say that Will wasn't the only one to remark on it.”

“I promise, Gaius,” said Arthur. “I'll talk to him.”

Just then Merlin bounded up the stairs once more. “They're all going in twos so that if one of us gets caught there's immediate back up,” he said. “I was thinking we should go together.”

Arthur smiled. “Sure. Adventure calls.”

“Take heed,” Gaius said while Merlin and Arthur took to the stairs.

Merlin said, “Don't mind him. He's sort of adopted me.”

Arthur wasn't quite sure Gaius' words had been addressed to Merlin; nonetheless he quipped, “He's got a vested interest, I see.”

They'd reached the small, semi-deserted square that housed Gaius’ surgery building. By day more people were generally around, but now, no street lamps and no other kind of illumination available, not even the floating placards and billboards that Arthur had always loathed, it looked suggestively eerie. The broken windows of the surrounding structures and the creaking hinges of those doors that had been left gaping open made him shake a little as he slowly crossed the empty area.

“Arthur,” Merlin said, stopping and inhaling. “I get Gaius, you know?”

“I'm not sure I follow.”

“Let's say that I don't want anything to happen to you either,” Merlin said. “So stick to me.”

Arthur had to give Merlin a once over. He had no doubt in his heart as to Merlin's willingness to leap before danger if the occasion called for it as it was likely to. Merlin had already saved his life once, but his having done so that time wouldn't ensure his ability to achieve the same result once more. Not without him dying or risking more than was right.

Merlin was just a slip of a young man and he couldn't save Arthur from secret police gangs. “Merlin, you can't protect me,” Arthur said, likely sounding obnoxious to Merlin's ears. “So I'd rather you didn’t die just because you have an inflated sense of what you think you can—”

Merlin puffed up his cheeks and, on a loud exhale, said, “Man of little faith.”

It seemed clear they’d never agree on that score, so they got into business mode again. After all, there was no denying the fact that they would have to be careful to accomplish their mission. First and foremost, they couldn't be loud or they'd be drawing attention to themselves. Furthermore, they couldn't follow the most direct route to Camelot's periphery due to roadblocks manned by the guards and police.

They had to take a circuitous route as well and one that hadn't been chosen by the other members of their group. The meds delivery was very much needed and if one of them were to be stopped, the consequences would be catastrophic. Both personally and socially. The underground could well sink; its members would lose faith. People would die and the arrested person could very well be in grave danger.

They couldn’t afford to be detained.

Since nobody used it anymore, the ground-level path that led out of Camelot was in a state of total disrepair. Ever since Father had begun his system of rule, pushing the idea of modernity, the main form of outbound transport had been mini jets, self or software-steered hover-cars, or the aerial monorail, connected as it was with the main transport hubs of Albion to allow for an easy commute. Nobody that Arthur knew took the terrestrial route anymore. Nobody but the workers. And since they had to do so only for short stretches, not being allowed, as Merlin had said, out of the capital, most roads were empty, full of potholes, the tarmac cracked here and there, or overgrown with vegetation.

By hiking forwards though, they made it to the caves in a little more than an hour, walking one abreast of the other.

Once in sight of the entrance, which was surrounded by triangular danger signs, Arthur said, “I remember thinking there'd be wolves in there.”

From behind the bushes he and Merlin watched as one of their group slid inside the caves. “How old were you then?”

“Seven?” Arthur answered, trying to place the memories. “I thought that access was forbidden because there were dangerous beasts inside. I believed... I believed I'd be the one to battle them.”

Merlin's teeth chattered as he blew breath on the tips of his fingers. “You are battling them.”

“I—”

“Okay,” said Merlin, peeking out from the bush. “I guess Dayra has had more than a fifteen minute start. We can go too. We'll slip the packages at Freya's. She needs them and she's got a bigger flat than most of us, relatively. Her flatmate died.”

Once they’d established that they were not being followed, they rose from their crouch, wrapped themselves more fully in their jackets, fingers in their pockets touching the care packages, and trudged on towards the cave.

“What did she die of?”

“The fever Freya's got on top of extreme fatigue,” whispered Merlin as they darkened the cave's entrance.

They could see very little and had to use their hands and grope along to get an idea of the path ahead. So as not to stumble, they proceeded very slowly.

“Thankfully, it's pills,” Merlin joked. “Think if it had been glass vials.” He stumbled as if to prove how lucky it was they were carrying little capsules instead of anything breakable.

“When does the track veer into the mineshaft?” Arthur asked, thinking of the practicalities.

“I'm not a genius at map reading,” Merlin told him. “But it shouldn't be long.”

“I suppose we're in for some vertical climbing,” Arthur said, observing how the road ahead seemed to become steeper and steeper.

Merlin was breathing a little fast, running out of breath from time to time. “Yeah, nothing too dangerous though.”

After a while Merlin pointed him towards an aperture in the wall that had been barred by solid planks. However those of Merlin's underground friends that had come first had removed them, for they were lying propped against the rocky surface of the wall.

“That's our passage,” said Merlin.

And down it they went, and then up and up till they were almost grappling with the rock wall, jagged protuberances scraping the skin of their hands. Climbing was hard work as the passage was narrow and there wasn't much ventilation, but finally they spied a bigger opening.

“That's the mineshaft proper,” said Merlin, sounding both winded and relieved.

A little more effort, some elbow pushing and they were out, or at least on completely level ground.

“From here it's just a little walk,” Merlin said. “Remember when we passed the mines the other day?”

“Sure, I do.”

“Well this is a parallel corridor to the one we followed that time around.”

They'd emerged out of the mines and had made the inhabited sectors, when a voice echoed off the walls. “Halt there!” it called.

Arthur's blood froze in his veins, dizziness almost overcoming him. His vision clouded but he stayed still, knowing that he shouldn't excite suspicion. They couldn't be searched. He didn't want to imagine the consequences of that. Would he have it in his power to save Merlin if such a thing happened? Would father help him when he knew about the rest and hadn’t lifted a finger? He couldn’t risk that.

Ignoring what was going on in Arthur’s mind, Merlin stopped, then smiled and sauntered over to the guard. He looked up meekly and said, “Yes, sir?” in a show of less than characteristic humility.

Merlin had smiled in many ways since Arthur had known him. Too short a time, yes, but, despite the brevity of their acquaintance, Arthur’d retained a memory of each one of those smiles and none of them had ever suggested that Merlin was afraid, or asking for mercy at the hands of anyone.

“What are you doing here?” The guard, brandishing a baton and other weapons he'd belted around his middle, loomed angrily over Merlin and pointed at his identifying bracelet. “It's not shift change time yet and you're day shift.”

“I couldn't sleep,” said Merlin. “Went for a walk with my colleague.”

The guard growled low in his throat, flicked a look at Arthur and then one at his bracelet. For the longest moment it'd seemed he wouldn't take his eyes off Arthur, searching him for something.

Arthur had camouflaged himself to the best of his abilities but he hadn't shaved off his hair so that he could act as go between with the above world, getting food and other necessary items without eliciting any eyebrow raise. That, though, might have betrayed him.

Merlin sidled and stepped backwards and very, very slowly put himself between Arthur and the guard. “I was worried about Machine 43's sump. It's damaging the coolant.”

“Then lodge a complaint with your foreman and don't loiter!”

“Yes, sir,” Merlin mumbled, shoulders one tense line.

“You can go now,” the guard barked nastily. “You’re up in three hours anyway. And you too,” he told Arthur.

When the guard left, they both sagged against the wall, sheer relief washing over Arthur. “That was close,” he said.

Merlin whistled softly in agreement; he timidly reached out and palmed Arthur’s hand, skin soft against Arthur's knuckles. “That was a close call indeed.”

Arthur bobbed his head. Said, “Yes. Yes, it was.”

“I'd have killed him before I let him get you.”

Arthur was left speechless, thoughts coalescing and then dissolving, spiralling in a thousand different directions. He laced his fingers together with Merlin's and gave them a powerful squeeze so his own could stop trembling. His heart seemed to have grown in his chest e and have become three sizes too big; there was a roaring in his ears he had to fight just so he could talk over it and what he said was just, “Merlin, I—”

“You'll never really change my mind. So we'd better go before someone else stops us and I have to act on what I said.”

Later that night, once they were sure they weren’t being pursued, they delivered the care package in Freya's quivering hands.

Even though she was wrapped in a horrid shawl, her gums were an unhealthy purple and her lips chapped, she looked lovely. Her smile touched Arthur's heartstrings and her embrace, even though she was frail and felt twiggy in his arms, was a powerful thing that made him even more sure than before in regard to the exploitation of the workers. It had to be stopped. If anything, she was tangible, living proof of that. Even when they left Freya that knowledge didn’t leave Arthur. Not for one moment.

He'd find a way to make Father see what was required; he would make him understand. He needed time. That was all.

While Arthur was busy thinking these issues through, Merlin said, “We can relax for tonight, Arthur. We made it alive after all.”

“You think I'm not happy we made it?” Arthur asked, stepping inside Merlin's little flat.

Without any warning Merlin backed him up against the wall, little gentleness about him but for his eyes; they were soft and very blue, very guileless.

And then Merlin tilted his head, framed Arthur's face in his hands and pressed their lips together, sending Arthur's heartbeat skyrocketing. Not having expected this — not right now and not when so many things still felt brittle-new— Arthur gasped.

Merlin used the chance thus provided him to nibble on Arthur's upper lip, to suck on his lower one and bite softly.

Arthur hadn't quite managed to wrap his arms fully around Merlin's waist, when he found the tip of Merlin's tongue was in his mouth, a quick, warm and slick presence.

Arthur bunched up the material of Merlin's worn-thin shirt, shards of sensation piercing him like a bright explosion that was a little painful, and closed his eyes both to focus on what he was experiencing — though he felt alive, afire, floating — and to keep from kissing Merlin again.

Their breaths still mingled, he pushed Merlin back and said, “I'm Uther Pendragon's son.”

Merlin's eyes hardened for a brief spell and Arthur didn't dare ask what that meant.

****

It had been easy, Will thought to himself. He'd delivered the package to one of their safe houses, just sure of the fact that Merlin would have handed the stuff he’d been entrusted with to Freya, just so she could have her cure sooner. Will knew Merlin through and through and could regulate his actions according to his Merlin expertise.

Now he had a few hours to lie down before his shift would begin and was hurrying towards his tenement in Sector D.

For lack of anything better to do, he kicked a lose piece of mortar that was encumbering the path that would lead him back home. He'd have to remember to move his mattress, unless Morris had somehow managed to plaster that leak closed.

He was thinking of where to find a pail in case Morris had failed, when he was grabbed from behind by someone who was a mass of sheer muscle. At the same time three men appeared before him, all wearing the brown shirts and dark armbands that declared them to be members of the Ministry Police.

“What do you want with me?” he asked riotously, pivoting a little in the hopes of making a run for it. This wasn’t good news at all. Though at least he wasn’t carrying anymore.

A large, balding, leering man dressed in casual clothes appeared, eyes squinting gleefully, malignantly. “William Ealdor, you’re under arrest,” he said.

“You're not police,” Will said. “You're not wearing a uniform and you can't detain me if you're not police.”

One of the guys who'd made a grab for him punched him from behind, leaving him gasping for air.

“That's not for you to decide,” said the man in plainclothes. “Now shut up and follow us like a good boy.” Plainclothes smiled, showing all his teeth. “Unless you need more convincing.”

A baton prodded him.

“Fuck Arthur,” Will yelled, gnashing his teeth. “The bastard should rot in hell! I bleeding knew he couldn't be trusted.”

Plainclothes lifted his hand and Will was hit again.

“Now, now. Language, my boy.”

****

Merlin gritted his teeth; his fingers, still cupping Arthur's face, twitched. His throat worked and he stepped back, although he didn’t let go of Arthur, his fingertips tracing his features, his nose, his jaw, the curve of his mouth.

Arthur's heart was in his throat; he felt as though paralysed, about to lose everything.

“I have a secret too,” Merlin said. His gaze was levelled at Arthur, but it was as though he was staring in the far distance. “Though mine is scarier than yours.”

Arthur moved his head up and down although he didn't think he knew what he was doing that for. He certainly hadn't thought that his confession would elicit another one on Merlin's part. “How?”

“I shouldn't be around,” Merlin said, his lips ghosting over the side of Arthur's face, the tip of his nose cold against Arthur's cheek.

“What?” Arthur tried, gulped down, arousal and the need to pose questions warring within him, “What's all that about?”

“I think I should be dead.”

“What? No! That makes no sense.”

Merlin scraped his teeth along Arthur's neck, then kissed it softly, mouth drawing back and orbiting closer again. “I'm alive because I've been hiding who I am,” he said, shivering uncontrollably. Arthur wanted to ask him if he was cold, if he needed anything, but the words shrivelled in his mouth.

“I have magic,” Merlin said. “I'm magic and I'm alive because I hid... All those children didn’t. I’m the last one who should be allowed to charge in and judge.”

Arthur surged, one arm safely around Merlin, his other hand at the nape of Merlin's neck. “I'm glad you're alive. I'm just glad.”

Arthur took Merlin's mouth then, feeling Merlin's chest rise against his. They ate into one another's mouths; their tongues tangled, licked against each other, slipping back and forth from one mouth to the other. Their kisses were fevered, intense; their hands traced the planes of their faces, travelled across their bodies, trembling, jittery, their fervour very near desperation.

Arthur’s mouth touched Merlin's throat, while his fingers clawed at his rumpled jacket. “Merlin, off, off.”

Merlin stepped back but Arthur couldn't let him go. He followed, needing to touch. He stripped Merlin's jacket off him and dropped it to the floor just as Merlin's hands moved, aiming for his belt. He undid it and slid it off Arthur, pulling down the zip.

Arthur drank in air and tore at Merlin’s shirt just as Merlin's thumb found the tip of his cock, circling it.

Arthur gave a hiss, like he'd been hurt. He looked down, saw the head and Merlin's fingers as they played with him, slicking him up.

“It's been so long,” he rasped out. “You just. You. I—”

He let out a heavy breath and let his hands speak for him.

Merlin toed off his shoes, and Arthur pulled at his shirt and trousers till they were both off.

Merlin kept touching him, fisting him, arms tangling.

They attempted more kisses, so hungry and wet and clumsy they ended up both panting and somehow naked, staring at each other.

“Tell me how,” Arthur said, breathing like a racehorse.

A tangle of human limbs, Merlin slammed him against the wall, one hand cradling his cheek, tongue working his mouth open, licking into it and setting Arthur on fire. So close, so intimate, this taste of him.

Merlin’s other hand was fisting them both, fingers running up and down, stroking, at first slowly, mind-blowingly delicately, then tugging ruthlessly. Slow, then quicker. Helpless, blind with pleasure, Arthur lifted his hips off the wall to grind against Merlin. He wanted to hold off, make it last, wanted to feel Merlin's skin and be able to smell the scent of him for as long as he could.

Life was rippling through him; his world had come apart and then come together again, and touching Merlin, having him physically, seemed to be the key to that.

He anchored a hand on Merlin's shoulder by passing it under Merlin's uplifted arm, lifting his own body up and down to rub himself off against Merlin while Merlin was trapping his upper lip between the both of his, his breath damp on Arthur's skin.

Pleasure seared Arthur’s nerve endings when Merlin pulled back his foreskin and began to slide it gently back and forth over the hard, leaking, raw-red head of his cock. Arthur couldn't take that. Couldn't; couldn't. He moaned, growled, did something, though he couldn’t tell what that was, as though he were wrapped in a fog.

In a half frenzy, he grabbed Merlin's buttocks and propelled him forward. And then he was backing Merlin up against the opposite wall, sonorous thud following, holding him up and making it so that Merlin was hooking one of his legs around Arthur's waist.

Then Arthur was thrusting his cock against Merlin's again, pushing him against the wall every time his hips rolled forwards. Merlin was being hoisted up, and then let down, his hands on Arthur’s shoulder, although he kept one foot on the ground for support.

Arthur's thighs burned; his lungs did as well. His heart had taken to race in a way he’d never known before.

Searching, his mouth returned to Merlin’s, muzzling, probing deep. Their bodies were pressed together now; Arthur had his hands on them both, providing friction, but then Merlin made a noise, grunted out his need, and their hands were joined again.

Merlin twisted his wrist, pulled at their cocks, long and out of rhythm, said, “Arthur,” and drove them both to a sudden, breath-taking orgasm. It came upon them rapidly but surely violently, amidst heavy breathing and loud bitten off sobs.

As they trembled in the aftermath, they held each other, Arthur having buried his head in Merlin's neck, his knees almost not holding him up. He was tired, so tired, could have slept for a millennium but didn't want to; he didn't. He wanted to stay where he was, get Merlin on the bed and lie down by his side. He wanted to feel like this again and again.

“Merlin, it's not your fault,” he said, once he'd done as he'd wanted, leading Merlin to his narrow bed. He'd cleaned him up, done the same himself, subsequently sprawling next to Merlin on the thin, lumpy mattress.

“Neither is it yours,” Merlin said, kissing him once more, lips rubbed raw and all.

“I'm an adult,” Arthur said. “I could have opened my eyes sooner.”

“I could have faced it instead of going underground.”

“I haven't begun to make amends yet.”

Merlin turned on his side, cupped his chin and told him, “You don't have to do that. You don't. Just... Just don't think that way.”

End of Part 2

Part Three

The valet smoothed Gorlois’ jacket with long, efficient strokes, straightening all creases and ruffles. He sidestepped and moved around Gorlois so he was facing him, handing him a pair of sober golden cuff links, the pair with the small engraved circle resembling a coronet Vivienne had loved so much.

Gorlois’ attention, however, wasn’t on his personal servant, but rather on the tiny print of the newspaper article he’d been reading while drinking his steaming morning coffee.

The coffee sat now untouched and gone cold on the ornate side table that gave a gentler touch to his dressing room.

So, instead of indulging in his morning ritual, Gorlois just stood there, crumpling up the newspaper in his hand, in half a mind to do something emphatic with it like throwing it down and trampling over it or flinging it into the fireplace.

He could see himself do it too, how satisfying the act would be, but his valet coughed and Gorlois revised his options. That wasn’t the kind of spectacle he wanted to give. Breathing out, he distended his fingers, his face feeling unbearably hot.

“Let’s not make a fuss today,” he said briskly, without meeting his valet’s subdued gaze.

“Very well,” sir.

When Gorlois cast aside the newspaper, dropping it on the armchair placed a few paces behind him, the valet came closer and put the cufflinks on his silk button-down.

“Be quicker about it,” Gorlois barked. “And when you’re done with this go get my personal pilot. I’m flying out this morning.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” the valet said. “I was sure you’d given dispositions to the contrary.”

“I’ve obviously changed my mind.”

The valet trembled, lowered his head, and hurried to complete his task. “I’ll go warn your pilot.”

An hour later Gorlois stormed into Pendragon’s office, holding up the battered copy of the newspaper he’d been reading at home.

Uther looked up, setting a pile of official looking documents aside. “You can go,” he told his team of secretaries and assistants, waving them away as one would an annoying cloud of insects. To Gorlois he said, “A newspaper?”

Now they were alone, Gorlois could be more open. “William Ealdor’s body found!” Gorlois read out loud as a newscaster would. “This has you written all over it, Uther.”

“I didn’t think you had espoused the workers’ cause.”

“I haven’t,” said Gorlois. “But this is extreme.”

“It’s good news for us,” said Uther. “This will make them pause.”

Gorlois shook his head. “This will provoke them.”

“And that will prove they’re inherently dangerous,” said Uther, voice cold.

Gorlois quickly unbuttoned his double-breasted jacket and sank onto a chair. “I do believe they are,” Gorlois said. “But Ygraine wouldn’t have wanted this.”

Face flushed, blue eyes blazing, Uther said, “You think you speak for her.” The tone was clipped, but the anger in it clearly discernible.

“No, I don’t,” answered Gorlois. “She chose you in the end. But I knew her well enough; she wouldn’t have wanted this. These sacrifices made in her name.”

“Need I remind you how she died?” Uther asked, leaning forward. “What killed her?”

“And that’s why,” said Gorlois, “I acceded. Why I backed the lie.”

“Your hands are as dirty as mine are,” said Uther. “In this and other things. You’re not their champion, Gorlois. Your head rolls just as surely as mine if they’re not stopped.”

Gorlois pushed a few strands of hair off his forehead. “This will give them cause to rebel, Uther. If you can’t see that, then you’re not the cunning leader I thought you were. Political expediency is one thing. This—” He made ample, descriptive gestures with his hands as he hissed. “This is folly.”

“I agree with your evaluation,” Uther deadpanned.

“What?” What are you saying?”

“I agree,” Uther explained slowly, looking out the window behind him at the domes of the towering Camelot buildings. “They will rise. We’ll help them rise, too.”

“What are you saying?” Gorlois asked, tongue dry in his mouth. “You want them to storm government buildings to stop...”

“I want to plant a few ruffians in their midst.”

Gorlois hands tightened. “So they’ll egg people on to violence, get them worked up?”

“Indeed,” said Uther. “Someone will be tempted. And they’ll do something. A terrible act of violence will ensue.”

“And then you prove to the other workers how dangerous the rebels are.”

“How everybody stands to lose if their allowed to campaign—”

“And the rebellion is quenched.”

The noise died in Gorlois’ ringing ears; robbed of the power of speech, he stared ahead, not quite seeing Uther, but the shadows of their pasts. Sweet Ygraine, her golden locks and her fondness for the fey people who had magic. A younger, hopeful Uther, full of charisma and self-assurance. Presented with a crumbling society, he’d provided answers, been the man to follow. He’d seemed to know what to do, how to cut his losses, how to create order out of chaos. And then there was himself and Vivienne, his lost wife.

“That is more cynical than I gave you credit for,” Gorlois finally managed. Most of the fight had gone out of him, the desire to ram a fist into Uther’s organised desk gone, muted to a simmer that would have to be considered and analysed later.

Uther’s mouth tightened dourly, a little muscle leaping in his locked jaw. “Vivienne would have said you never were a naive man.”

Gorlois bowed his head and would have hidden his face in his hands if he hadn’t thought that would give his game away. “You’re right.” He stood up briskly. “But this is a risk. A risk for us all and you took the executive decision without consulting anyone. You are the head of state. It’s in your power.” He laughed humourlessly. “You have all the power after all and I — your old friends — have none. Bu as you said, you won’t be the only one to fall if you’ve gone too far.”

Gorlois retreated to the door, having said his piece.

Uther’s voice reached him before he could touch the handle.

“I’m doing this for my son. I can’t lose him.”

The door closed with a soft click behind Gorlois.

Oh yes, Gorlois did understand loss.

****

That morning, before he had to head for work, Merlin flipped over and onto him and entered him from behind, slow, smooth, oil and spit from earlier in the night having slicked the way.

It still burnt but there was more to it than that, the discomfort giving way to a sense of intimacy, of fullness that was a little bit more than simply physical, something that became oddly wonderful once he learnt to focus less on the blunt soreness, which made him swallow, bury his head in his pillow and his fingers twist the bedcovers, and more on the rest.

He’d never have believed it if they’d told him before, but the slow penetration was more than the sum of all it seemed to be, the down to earth component: something hard, a little foreign and stiff inside; his reaction to it didn’t boil down to that. Not just bodies, like the ones he’d taken or seen taking their frenzied pleasure before, no.

The feeling of vulnerable flesh filling him, the feeling of being stretched open, of Merlin being the one to do it, the Merlin he wanted under his skin, over him, around him, alive and vibrant, was pushing all extraneous thoughts out of his head and he forgot the world, jolted as he was by the impact of all the stimuli conflagrating inside him, bursting from low in his belly and filling his cock till it arched against his taut abdomen.

As Merlin went deeper and deeper, making of it a constant ebbing sensation, never backing too far or slipping out, Arthur reached back and grabbed his thigh to keep him seated.

“Arthur,” Merlin said, his leg between Arthur's, keeping him open, his sweaty chest a line of fire draped along Arthur’s back.

As he rocked softly in and out, showering his shoulders with wet open-mouthed kisses, his hot breath tickling the back of Arthur's neck, Merlin made little bitten out noises. It was the only sound between them. That and Arthur's grunts. His crazed, “Keep going; I don't. I’ve nev-—”

Merlin grabbed his hair and pulled his head back, straining to kiss Arthur's lips. Arthur opened up, let it be sloppy and slow, a mess of tongues and spit, fast licks into warm mouths. It was long and hot, an edge of raw passion to it.

Insides almost melting, belly feeling liquid, his cock throbbing hot between his legs, Arthur balled his fists, shivers chasing down his spine, till he could hold it in no more and his hand went to his dick, stripping it, tugging upwards.

He was nearly there when there was a loud rasp on the door and a voice penetrated the haze of pleasure Arthur was shrouded in. “Merlin, open up, please.”

“Let them knock,” Arthur said, voice like broken shards. “Let them; let them.”

“Merlin,” the voice resounded again.

“It's Aglain,” Merlin said, biting on Arthur's shoulder, teeth sinking in but not really drawing blood. Arthur would have invited more of that, for Merlin said, “I don't want to. I don't want to, but I should go and see what it’s about.” His hips had stilled but he was still a thick presence inside, waking Arthur to life and sensation. “Merlin, finis—”

“It's urgent,” Aglain called.

Pulling free of Arthur, Merlin walked to the door, back ramrod straight for once. He grabbed a pair of trousers and covered up, but didn't open the door immediately, casting a glance at Arthur. “I'm not alone, Aglain,” he said.

“Merlin, you know me,” Aglain said. “It doesn't matter and this is urgent.”

Arthur rolled onto his back, jaw jutting out, and nodded. He let the sheets conceal his nakedness, feeling more exposed than he'd ever been, rubbed raw to the bone, as though everything that had been lying inside him, buried deep, was surfacing, visible to anyone who’d care to look.

Merlin opened the door, passing his fingers through his hair.

Aglain stepped in, mostly ignoring Arthur's presence in Merlin's bed or the pungent smell of sweat that dominated the tiny room.

“Merlin, believe me, I wouldn't have come had there been another way.”

“You're skipping work,” Merlin noted, eyes reduced to inquisitive slits. “That's not. You never do that.”

“Merlin, I felt sure that you needed to be told by a friend, and though I realise I'm not the closest one you have, I'm not too keen to leave this to someone else.”

Merlin grew pale, Arthur could see it. He himself sat up, working his trousers on, ready to stand and put a friendly hand on Merlin's shoulder in case Aglain was here to impart bad news. It seemed as though he was, since he was using a soothing tone and his brow was gently creased.

Merlin, for his part, was retreating into a corner a little step at a time. “Has there been another accident at the plant?” he asked.

Aglain mimed a 'no'.

“So it's...” Merlin began, eyes gone spirited. “It's...”

Aglain held up a hand as if to get Merlin to calm down. His next words came out in a rush as though they needed to be out. “Will's body was found yesterday evening, Merlin.”

“His body? So he’d dead or you wouldn’t have said—. How?” Merlin was hugging himself, rocking back and forth now, his face a blotchy red. “Was he—”

“He must have been identified as a protester,” said Aglain. “He didn't come into work yesterday and he wasn't seen making it home so we have to suppose that...”

Arthur didn't listen to any of that. His main concern was Merlin, who was choking back tears, breathing fast, forehead veins throbbing, snot running freely from his nostrils.

Arthur was up and on his way to the corner Merlin had sought when a loud cracking sound burst on them and the ground seemed to ripple beneath their feet. It felt as though the floor was made of jelly, no longer solid, an undulating wave that couldn’t be trusted to take their weight. The roaring sound became deafening and a crack opened in the wall, lifting up a cloud of plaster debris.

Other fissures were slicing the wall open; Arthur could barely keep his footing. The old lamp on the desk slid down it and crashed to the ground, shards and bits of metal everywhere.

“It's Merlin,” Aglain nearly shouted. “His powers. He can't control his powers.”

Arthur bit back his _how do you know he's magic_ and asked instead, “How do I stop him?”

“Reach out to him,”Aglain said. “That should bring him back.”

A bright flash came from the window, punctuated by a thunderous rumbling sound. Merlin was biting back tears, swaying.

“He's dangerous, isn't he?” Arthur asked, holding both arms out to get his balance.

“He could blow us all up, if he wanted to. I don' think it's what he wants. But he needs to be approached with extreme caution.”

“He's lost,” Arthur said. “I won't leave him like that.”

Aglain lifted his shoulders in a shrug, a faint one, but one nonetheless. “Do it then, but know he's so powerful he could kill when startled. And look at his eyes.” Arthur saw they were both glassy and swirling gold. “He's not with us now.”

Arthur tilted a defiant eyebrow.

Earth still shaking beneath his feet, Arthur moved closer to Merlin and put an arm on his shoulder. The patch of skin he’d touched was furnace hot and clammy as though Merlin had a fever. Although he was out of his depths, Arthur guessed it was the magic and thought only to get to Merlin quick before he magicked them into oblivion. He made his voice soft and said, “Merlin, stop this. You're hurting yourself.”

Merlin continued on, not making a noise, but his breathing got faster. He'd turned red when he was told of Will’s death, but now, as he struggled for breath, his face got purple, especially at the temples. His nostrils flared like those of a wild, spooked horse. More worrying still, he was still moving as if in a trance.

“Merlin, please. Think of the people you might be hurting,” Aglain tried. “Think of the workers assigned to the scaffolds, Merlin, those that could be crushed by machines.”

Arthur drew his heels together, squared his shoulders and said, “Merlin, if you hurt yourself...” More tenderly, Arthur brushed the back of Merlin's neck, fingers finding very short strands of hair, and stepped around him. The sight of Merlin so torn was killing him too and he felt powerless, as if he'd been thrust in a world that was too big and menacing for him to come to terms with it.

Merlin had been Arthur’s bright flame and now he was wandering in a maze created by his own sorrow, just staring ahead, eyes bloodshot. The world was shaking with his pain. Arthur had to stop that. “I don't know what I'd. Do,” he said. “Think of me, all right? I... For me,” he finished and fit his lips to Merlin's.

The earth stopped shaking and Merlin blinked.

****

The frame displayed the photo to perfect advantage. Vivienne had looked young and beautiful then, dark curls coiffed on top of her head and falling around the sides of her forehead in flawlessly arranged little ringlets. Her hair had been nearly raven black but her eyes, which you could have expected to be as dark, very instead a pale bluish green, soft and whimsical.

Gorlois remembered being stunned by her beauty when he'd met her, even though he'd immediately thought they would never quite match.

She'd been like a summer's flower petal, frail and gracious, a beauty to behold but difficult to preserve. He’d been driven by dreams of duty and a civilisation to forge.

Gorlois remembered when the picture had been taken, twenty-two years ago to the day, at a party Uther had given. They'd retired to the calm of Uther's balcony, contemplating its geometrical garden, Vivienne looking for traces of nature in the perfect choreography of shapes that had offered itself to their eyes.

“Where is it?” Vivienne had asked. “I can't see it. I see triangles.”

Gorlois had leant over the rail and said. “I think that's Uther all right.”

“His determination to bend things makes me shudder,” Vivienne had said. “His mechanisation fixation is... It'll endanger us all.”

“He’s made of steel,” Gorlois had said. “In a way his interest in engineering is fitting. And there’s no danger whatsoever to what he’s doing.”

“They say the sun might die out.”

Gorlois had laced his fingers together. “I wouldn't worry about that. Those are only rumours spread by alarmist scientists. I looked into it,” he’d insisted. “They're baseless, rest assured. Besides Ygraine is working closely with Nimueh.”

Vivienne's voice had had an edge to it when she’d said, “Yes, I hear she's chummy with a sorceress now.”

“If they accept to power the machines...” Gorlois’d said speculatively. “My God, it'd be the best solution. We could flourish. Ygraine's had the best idea.”

Vivienne had worried her thin lips. “Of course,” she’d said, toying with her diamond bracelet. It shone more than the pale moon. “Ygraine always has the best ideas.”

“Vivienne—”

“I'm perfectly aware.”

“Ygraine's an admirable woman and as much as I fear magic users, we can't say that her courage in befriending them and leading the project won't help us all in the long run.”

“I don't think that's why Uther is so accepting of it while he's so unspeakably controlling about other issues.”

“She's his wife,” Gorlois had said. “Can you blame the man for being swayed?”

“I can blame other men for being swayed,” Vivienne had said. “But then perhaps that's what perfection does to them.”

“Vivienne,” Gorlois had cautioned her. The sounds from the orchestra inside had muffled his voice; the crescendo had obscured it.

“I'm stating the facts as I see them, Gorlois.” The breeze had played with her hair then, pushing it into her eyes. She'd seemed uncaring. “I don't like Ygraine's solution. It puts all of us in their debt. And I don't like Uther's either. There'll never be enough workers — even if he tries to conscript them. Not to build the kind of empire he needs and seems to strive for.”

“There are always incentives,” Gorlois had said, revolving the words he'd heard during the council meeting he’d attended that morning in his mind. “Ways.”

“I hope you don't lose your integrity over it.”

The words had caused Gorlois to flinch then and rethinking of them now made him recoil in much the same way. Vivienne had died a few years later but if she could see him now, see what he'd become, she wouldn't be proud. She'd repeat those words and this time he couldn't reply with a diverted, “I hardly think there's cause for that.” Despite the quandaries and temptation waiting to trip him up, he hadn't believed failure or compromise possible back then. The arrogance of men.

He downed his whisky and rang the bell. “Lamorak,” he said, when his personal secretary appeared. “You remember Dr Gaius Webster?”

“The Prime Minister's retired physician, sir?”

“Yes,” said Gorlois, licking at his lower lip to chase the taste of alcohol. “Him. I hear he's not fully retired. He's still practicing.”

“Yes, sir. I heard something to that effect too.”

“I want you to find me his address. I want to talk to him”

He was met with a cocked eyebrow and a, “I'll track him down for you, sir.”

****

The space they were in sported exposed bricks that ran up to the ceiling and chestnut beams criss-crossing it. The main fittings-up consisted of partitions of cement covered by rough, coarse planks that had never been planed. No windows faced west or south, but there was a large, crescent-shaped one overlooking the north entrance.

The dank concrete floor was stained with ancient oil and grease while pumps and other appliances had been shoved in a corner and there left to rust, clearly marking this place as an old abandoned warehouse.

Evidently intimidated by the nature of the place, its state of disrepair, the members of the underground were sitting on empty upturned crates. The area in the middle was empty since for some reason they'd all chosen to either line the walls or sit down on their makeshift ‘benches’.

“They've gone too far,” Forridel was saying. “We need to act now.”

Aglain was shaking his head, raising his arms to placate the rising murmurs of assent. “We're not ready,” he said. “We need to plan things out. Will's death shouldn't lead to more deaths.”

Forridel rose. “I don't want any of us to die but now we're being threatened in a brand new way. Being picked one by one will get us annihilated just as surely as rising and fighting for what we believe in. Will some of us die? Sure. But this sitting duck business is helping no one. Will was right. I say we fight.”

She was cheered: there was some clapping. A follower of hers rose and said, “Death to Pendragon and all his ministers!”

“Let's sabotage them,” another said. “One by one. Let's put the fear of god into them. Blow'em up.”

Arthur felt cold drops of sweat trickle down his spine. Dayra, who like him looked stricken and two shades too pale, said, “’Blow ‘em up?’ I'm not sure I want to.”

Merlin, who'd been standing right next to Arthur, ambled towards the centre of the standing area, threw back his head and said, “I'm all for changing things. Changing our lives. But we can't do what you proposed doing. We just can't or we'd be like them. I want to depose Uther and send him packing. I don't... I'm missing Will a lot too. I grew up with him. I did. He looked out for me and, yes, sure I feel like I want to hurt someone but I don't... If I do that when do I stop? I think we should ask ourselves that.”

One of the workers, fists balled, asked, “And why should we do as you say, uh, Merlin? You can't even help.”

“But I can,” said Merlin. “I can offer options.”

Aglain frowned and mimed a 'no' just as the first worker laughed ungenerously.

Merlin was bouncing hard on the balls of his feet, but he ploughed on. He had his eyes on Aglain yet Arthur soon found that he meant to address them all. “I can help find another way,” Merlin said even as he was being booed by some of his listeners. “I can give you my magic to help change things.”

“You are implying that you're magic and that you were never taken?” said a man called Hengist.

“Yeah,” sneered another. “Why weren't you arrested and thrown in Sector Y? Why are you still free to come and go and wear a white bracelet?”

“Because I hid,” Merlin answered. “Will knew.”

“The dead man knew,” someone jeered.

Aglain interrupted. “It's true,” he said. “I've always suspected. My parents believed in the existence of magic and raised me to detect the signs, sense them. He is a sorcerer.”

“He’s a druid; listen to him,” Freya pleaded.

Arthur stepped forwards, feeling that Merlin needed his support. “I saw him do it.”

Hengist said, “Oh yes. Because now we're gonna trust your word, man from above.”

“I have no reason to lie.”

“Is it a coincidence then that our friend Will died a few weeks after you popped up? He didn't like you, you know.”

“Arthur,” asked Forridel. “Are you a spy? Were you sent to report on us so they'd know whom to take out?”

The atmosphere had changed; all eyes were now turned to him and in all of them there was a hard, flinty expression. Some fists were raised and most people were side-eyeing him or murmuring amongst themselves.

“No! No,” he said. “I'm not a spy.”

Merlin wheeled around and his eyes took in Arthur for the longest time. They were wide and all pupil now; he gave Arthur a dark, haunted look, his chin quivered but he said, “I will never believe that he lied his way in. I'll never do it.” And then Merlin’s eyes turned gold, a proof of his powers, of what he could do with them.

Arthur had no doubt as to the reasoning behind Merlin's timing, but that was nothing compared to the fact that Merlin was willing to believe in him in spite of the way the facts were stacking themselves against him.

While some of the people gathered for the secret meeting gave him a long look, as though they were taking notes on his behaviour to spy signs of Arthur's guilt, others were too busy retreating, seeking the walls or sheltered nooks and crannies for protection, backing away from Merlin. Some even eyed the door.

Before the situation could deteriorate further, something completely unexpected happened. The warehouse's panic doors opened and in stalked a man Arthur would never have expected to see there: Gorlois, the Minister for Industry and Science, Father's oldest ally. Gaius was following him, keeping a few yards behind, as if treading on eggshells.

Arthur wasn't the only one to stand there stunned, gaping at the new arrival, fearing betrayal. Gorlois was highly recognisable since he was perpetually giving speeches in support of the government. No worker could possibly doubt his identity or mistake him for someone else.

He was and had always been Uther Pendragon's second in command.

Gorlois’ opening words were no less stunning than his entrance in that he chose not to explain his presence there. He opted for saying, “Arthur is not in the government’s payroll. I'd know. He's not an agent provocateur. He's not a spy.”

“Why shouldn't we kill you?” Hengist asked.

“So that you can be wiped away from the face of the earth?” Gorlois said. “For killing a statesman? Uther is waiting for just that, believe me. Ealdor's death was designed as a provocation.” He looked at Arthur. “And a warning.”

“Gorlois,” Arthur said.

“Hello, Arthur.”

“You know each other?” Forridel asked.

Gorlois waved off the point. “All in good time. Before you kill me, there's something I need to say.”

“Speak,” said Merlin.

“You know who I am. And where my allegiance lay,” Gorlois said. “I've always strongly believed in the government’s line. I thought magic dangerous. I had proof of it. A dear friend died because a sorcerer dared too much in order to harness the earth's power.” Again Gorlois raked his eyes all over Arthur and Arthur had no doubt that a good part of this speech was directed at him; yet he chose to stay silent till Gorlois, whose presence here still couldn’t be explained, was done.

Gorlois did, in fact, continue, “I believed our planet couldn't support us all unless we took drastic measures and employed very cheap labour. That's why I sold my soul, see. A mixture of vengeance and practicality. But Uther went too far. He chose a kind of manipulation I can no longer support and William Ealdor was just the tip of the iceberg.”

“There's more, isn't there?” Merlin asked.

“There is,” said Gorlois. “And I think it's in everybody's best interests to know. So I’ll sum it up. Uther wants you to rise and prove both violent and a danger to law and order, so that he can finally crush your rebellion, your group’s questioning the authorties. Ealdor's death was the bait.”

Merlin hissed and there was a hint of the ground shaking again.

Gorlois bobbed his head up and down as if he knew what Merlin was and was softening his words as a mark of his respect. “The other revelation is a little more momentous. At least in the grand scheme of things.”

“Hear, hear,” Forridel said sarcastically.

“I'm sure,” said Gorlois with the self-assurance of the born politician, “that you will agree with me once you know the truth. Gaius will confirm.”

Gaius nodded his head.

“The sun is not dying,” said Gorlois.

A murmur of dissent rose, like thunder before a tempest.

“I realise this is shocking news,” said Gorlois, his voice carrying over the incredulous ones of his listeners. “For the past twenty years the government has repeatedly stated that the sun was dying and that only the energy supplied by the plants could keep it going for more than a generation or two. For a while there, we believed it was the case too. This was around the time Uther rose to power. But I still hoped the worst wasn’t true and summoned a commission formed by scientists, the best in their fields I could find, to look into the matter. After painstaking tests and rigorous research they gave me their answer. No, the sun could shine on for much longer, they said. It was — and is — in its burning out phase, but it would keep on servicing us for millennia still. No emergency.”

“Then why?” asked Forridel. “Why?”

“To have an excuse to inflict forced labour on the masses,” said Gorlois. “If there was such a momentous threat as the end of the world in sight, then the few who had a conscience would more easily agree to enslave their fellow human beings. The end justifying the means. As a result, Uther became rich and powerful, unstoppable.”

“And Uther knew,” Merlin concluded. “Uther knew.”

“Of course he did,” Gorlois said. “It was his idea. That and massacring magic users.”

“He hates us,” said Merlin, rubbing his neck. “But I don't see why he would.”

“Because in the early days we were seeking an alternative to labour-created power and the alternative should have been magic. Magic to help the world. This at a time when the test results were only known to me and Uther alone. But the sorceress conducting the experiments had no sense of measure, she wouldn't stop at magic activated machines, she sought the source of quintessential power.”

“Life, death and creation,” said Merlin, mouth hanging open.

“Indeed, she went too far and Uther's wife died during an experiment.”

Arthur felt as though his legs couldn't carry him — his mother — and he wasn't even listening anymore when Gorlois said, “I have given you the key to destroying Uther. Unveiling his big lie. The question here is whether you want to play this game the way Uther would have, violently, the eye for an eye way, or if you want to create a new order.”

“What do you say, Arthur?”

And someone, someone in the crowd that had never before spoken up, jumped on top on a crate, smacked his hand on his forehead, and said out loud, “Arthur. Of course. Arthur Pendragon.”

****

The boy's voice, the one Gorlois suspected of being like Nimueh, rose above the commotion to say, “He's a good man! He's done nothing but help us since I met him.”

Gorlois very nearly chortled at the devoted, impassioned defence. Had he ever been like that? So fierce when it came to his feelings? He supposed at one time he must have, although, in the long run, he never did fight for them.

“Merlin, he's Pendragon's son,” said one of the protesting workers. “That's it. That clinches it. He's a spy.”

Gorlois stepped in before things could get more heated; he could already see raised fists. “Please, please, think,” he said. “If he's a spy then you'd be forced to think I'm a spy too. Otherwise the coincidence of our dual presence here would be preposterous. If I'm a spy, why would I have given you the kind of information that will allow you undermine the government?”

One of the workers objected to his point. “How do we even know it's true? That it’s not some kind of ploy?”

“Then I'd have walked in the lion's den for nothing,” Gorlois pointed out. “Why would I be so stupid? I lead a comfortable life, if not a good one. Why put myself in danger? More, why would Uther send me when he has professionals ready to do the job at his bidding?”

He would have continued, if the younger Pendragon hadn't taken the floor. Gorlois could see that the young man who had defended him before, the stubborn, lanky one, was trying to stop him, but Arthur’s jaw was set in a way that reminded Gorlois of Uther at his most pigheaded. Like father, he supposed... He decided to let Arthur have his say and listen.

“I know that you have your suspicions,” said Arthur. “I know I'm not one of you. I was both privileged and condemned to live a life that was too perfect to be real. But I don't condone what my father has done. My position's not his. His sins aren't mine though the burden of them is. I want to make things better. Make things right. Because of who I am and what I owe you and because it's just.”

Gorlois admired Arthur's speech and he could see that he'd moved some of the less extremist underground members. They were exchanging glances and nodding their heads. However, if the low murmurs were anything to go by, there was surely a number of unconvinced people still in the group. But if Gorlois knew his crowds, and he did, Arthur just needed to say the right thing to sway them.

“You could kill me now for being a spy,” Arthur said, “or you could wait for me to start helping. Contribute. I'm going to make sure people know about the lie my father told. I still have connections that might be useful to you. How could you possibly stand to lose? You can check on me at all times. I’ll be under your watchful eye. I’m one; you’re a multitude.”

The blond woman that had spoken before raised her hand to hush the crowd. She said, “You can help us destabilize your father? You can really find a way to get the news of Uther’s scam across to a large section of the general population?”

“I swear I can,” said Arthur.

“Then we'll trust you that far,” said she. “Because Merlin believes in you and we need your connections and his powers.”

Gorlois thrust his left hand in his pocket and bit back a rueful smile. Perhaps, despite everything, Arthur could still have a future. Maybe even one Ygraine would be proud of.

There was more back and forth about minor issues but everybody seemed to be willing to abide by the woman’s decision and bet on Merlin’s defence of Arthur.

Before long Gorlois found himself wishing to retreat to the sanctuary of his own home in the country. He'd passed Arthur a briefcase containing documents supporting his denunciation of Uther's lies, old papers he'd always been in possession of because they’d been too scientific in nature to excite Uther's interest, all of them certifying that he'd spoken the truth. He was done now; and only longed to withdraw so he could go into a dignified, self-imposed exile. Though he'd surely started it, he desired to have no part in the plans for the first organised riot in the history of Albion since Uther had taken the reins of its government. The less he knew, the better for all concerned.

Arthur, though, stopped him before he'd gained the panic doors. “Wait,” he said, jogging up to him. “You knew my mother well; yet you never told me. You could have done it a hundred times and you never said a word.”

Gorlois stopped in his tracks and hung his head. “Arthur.”

“No, please, tell me,” Arthur said in a voice that was much more hesitant that the one he'd used to talk to those underground members who'd believed him a spy and likely wanted to have his hide.

The hesitation made Gorlois stop and reconsider. He inclined his head, silently telling Gaius, who'd never left his side since the revelation of the extent of Uther's past sins, to go. Wisely or unwisely, Gaius didn't leave the warehouse, but rejoined Merlin, as Gorlois slowly span around to meet Arthur's moist eyes. “Your father wanted it that way. Wouldn't have had her name on my lips for a long time.”

Arthur's eyebrows drew together. “I don't think I understand.”

Gorlois huffed and stepped back so that he was washed in the light pooling in from the half moon window that had been carved over the main entrance. “For what it counts, she would have approved of what you're doing.” Tiredly, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “She had the highest ideals and she always fought for them, relentlessly.”

“You,” said Arthur breathlessly, “you loved her. You.” Arthur made a low noise in his throat and took a step towards Gorlois so that his eyes could refocus despite the sun's blinding flare. “Were you with my mother? Are you—”

Gorlois extended a hand, palm up. “No, we never were. I— I think I danced on the cusp of something, Arthur, for a long, long while. It never happened. As you know, she had a husband. I had a wife you may or may not remember. But that is of no concern now. Absolutely none. What I can say is that she wouldn't have wanted any of this, what Uther’s done, especially not innocent people's deaths. Assassinations. She'd approve of your aims.”

He turned once again, needing to leave Arthur's earnest questions and uncharacteristically beseeching tone behind.

Pendragon-stubborn, Arthur didn’t let go. “Can you tell me about her?” he asked. “What she was like?”

“I can,” answered Gorlois, pinned in place by a strange emotional paralysis. “But not today. If you win, when you win, come and visit me. For now I think you and your worker friends need to make careful plans. Revolutions are all about presentation.”

So saying, he left.

****

Filing past rows of geometrically placed desks and dribbling around a gaggle of mature-faced, prim office boys, Arthur walked past the soundproof glass door screening the editor's office to knock on one situated a little further down the whitewashed corridor.

He'd largely ignored the employees seated inside the top floor booth, those who were handling, or so the signs hanging above their desks and cubicles said, circulation and accounting, or the officious clerks supervising ads and subscriptions, just as the staff of senior compositors, editors, and printers, distinguishable by their busy, superior airs, had ignored him in turn.

The printing plant on the first floor with its equipment of presses, typewriter machines, books, and functional though shiny furniture, had been a blur and he'd barely noticed the sign that pointed to the location of the publisher's own sanctum.

Now, standing rigidly before the opaque door, Arthur wished he could detect some sign of human presence from inside the office, but no sound seemed to originate from within.

Yet Arthur could hear the almost incessant murmurs coming from the newsroom; it was a background buzz; all bustle and uproar out there. Voices, the sounds of steps, phones incessantly ringing, laughter.

“I've got a huge story on the Prime Minister's new line on the environment,” someone announced.

“Yes, yes, as if I believe that,” one of the reporters said. “You only print what the minister tells you to print. That's the official line.”

“Can we do anything else?”

“The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”

“And how are we supposed to do that, uh? It will never be done. I can’t even see the point.”

Arthur tuned them out and refused to look at their carefully pressed shirts and starched collars, their uniform neatness. Instead he ran his hand down the scratchy wool of Merlin's spare pullover and thought of its owner, his trust in Arthur. His unwavering loyalty, his support even in the face of revelations that could have led other men to doubt.

Determined to pull this off as he'd promised, Arthur knocked again, and only stopped when he heard the musical, rhythmic clicking of heels that advertised the arrival of the person he'd been waiting for; it echoed down the narrow hallway, growing far louder and closer, so Arthur slowly pivoted and said, “Sophia.”

Sophia's dead eyes met his and at the sight of him she opened her mouth in shock, nearly losing the stack of papers she'd been carrying. “What are you doing here?”

“I need your help.”

Sophia grimaced; the contortion of her features made her look momentarily less pretty than usual. “Who'd need my help?” she asked.

“I do,” he told her, giving her an encouraging smile. “But in your office, please.”

In a swish of skirts and locks of flowing hair, she pushed open the door Arthur had planted himself in front of and allowed him to follow her.

Once inside, she deposited the papers she’d been clutching on top of a waist high metal filing cabinet and watched as Arthur took a chair and set a briefcase on his knees.

She seemed confused by his actions and his presence both, but took a seat behind her desk all the same, the now muted sounds from outside still humming in their ears. “Why would you come to see me, Arthur? That’s certainly new. No party in sight!”

“I need you to print something,” he said, not going into particulars just yet.

“I'm not responsible for what goes to print,” Sophia said, mouth twitching. “The editor and the censor are. I'm only the owner's daughter, Arthur. I'm here to look smashing on staff photos.”

“But you want to make a difference,” Arthur said, remembering her as she’d been on his balcony in the summer, her listlessness, her loss of hope and devastating nihilism. Her state of mind must have had a cause. He was ready to bet everything on his having read her right. Therefore, he leant back into his chair and opened the briefcase. “I know that you can't live the way you've been living,” he said. “This is what you need and what Albion needs.”

“Albion? That seems a little lofty.”

“No, I don’t think it is.”

Sophia's forehead wrinkled. “Why have you come to me of all people? You know I was just put here by my dad?” she asked, voice going a little higher. “Why not go to one of your father's influential friends? If you want to get a story printed that badly...”

Arthur wetted his lips; faint sounds of laughter erupted from outside the office they were ensconced in. “Because there's no way this would get past the Censorship Office.”

Glancing at the gold bracelet adorning her wrist and tinkering with it, Sophia said, “I can't help you. It’s six. We're past the deadline for copy. After the deadline no news item may be accepted for printing. It couldn't be checked over by the competent ministry people, you see.”

“Sophia, I need you to rush this to print,” he said, exhibiting a set of printed pages carefully stapled together. “I wrote this exposé using my own name. This briefcase—” He tapped its lid. “...contains all the proof needed to back up the assertions contained in it. It's all official documents, bearing a minister’s signature. Stamps, dates, the works.”

Sophia leaned over and tentatively took the papers from him. She ran her eyes over the first few lines of the page he’d placed on top and they widened. Her fingers looking nerveless, she dropped the documents. “Arthur, what is this?”

“The beginning of a new era,” he answered, infusing some confidence in his voice he wasn’t sure he was feeling just yet, gambling when he wasn’t too sure he was the right man to do this, to open the dam, to lead. “And something nobody in their right minds would ever agree to print.”

“I need more...”

“You read the first lines,” Arthur said, grabbing the armrest so as not to give in to finger drumming, hands sweaty. “It gets worse from there. Is it dangerous to print? Yes, it is. Should you be printing it? Yes, Sophia. You should. This is your chance just as it's mine.”

She wrapped her hand around her throat. “I can't rush such a thing to print, Arthur. It can’t be featured. I'll be stopped before I can even try to sneak it past the censors.”

“Only if you go through the normal channels. You’re the boss’ daughter.”

She worried her lower lip. “This is dangerous.”

“This is the right thing to do,” Arthur said gently. “And you can do it. You can rock the boat.”

“We'll have the state police on our necks before we can retract,” said Sophia, eyes a little wild. “We'll be shut down. They'll lock us up.”

“They,” Arthur said, nodding at the window, “are going to have something much more important to think about than your father's paper, Sophia. Trust me.”

Sophia inclined her head, grabbed the printed article and said, “This is certainly going to be better than the Mechanic Opera, though I feel as though I should be truly drunk for it.”

She left the office and closed the door behind her.

Arthur firmly hoped she was directing her steps towards the printing press rather than the first phone or police station. This was, when all things were said and done, a key step in their plan; he couldn’t botch it.

 

****

Sophia wrapped her blue chiffon scarf round her neck and turned on her heels, contemplating the briefcase Arthur had left on her desk. Not touching it yet, she picked up her coat from the rack and buttoned it up, sticking her soft leather gloves in one of the pockets.

Then warily, she crossed the room and lifted the case, weighing it as she studied the safe, cabinets and the largest drawers the room offered. One of them could be locked, she speculated. Who’d go looking? But, no, this kind of material shouldn't be seen in her possession or traced back to her.

She took a look at the window, the setting sun gilding every building and shape a pale, suffused orange, sighed and got out, waving her good-byes at her colleagues and employees without forgetting the security guard waiting by the jet cab landing strip.

“Good evening, Miss O'Shea.”

“Good evening, Nick,” she said, an invariable part of her ritual before going home.

“The weather is a little warm for this time of year,” Nick said, tilting his chin up. “Maybe spring will be on us sooner, what we can have of it.”

Sophia bit on her nail and belatedly answered. “Oh, yes. Yes.”

Then the jet cab was there and she mounted, securing the briefcase between her knees. When she looked up, she recognised the pilot as one who'd long worked for the same company usually contacted by the Albion Herald to provide transfers.

“Shall I fly you home, miss?” the pilot asked, looking into the rear-view mirror.

Eyes on the side window, she said, “Yeah.” And then, “No, no. Pitt Street. The Magenta Tower. 89th floor landing port.”

“As you wish, miss.”

Despite aerial congestion, Sophia found herself striding down the hallway leading to flat n° 8194 before the sun had fully set, not looking at the bucolic paintings dotting the panels above the wainscoting or at the sconce-like light fixtures illuminating them. Her sling-back shoes made no noise on the soft sand-coloured carpet and she was knocking on the door to n° 8194 before anyone could take notice of her presence.

Shoeless and shirtless, probably barely out of either bathtub or shower, Leon swung the door open and opened his mouth in surprise at seeing her.

“Sophia,” he said. “I wasn't expecting you.”

“I know,” she said. “I know. I was wondering if I could come in?”

Leon peeked down at his bare chest and scratched his chin. “Well, I was thinking of going out.”

She said, “Oh, I see. I didn't mean to,” while her heart started thumping fiercely in her chest.

Meaning to shuffle off, she started backing away, but he grabbed her shoulder gently and steered her inside. “It's nothing urgent,” he told her, snatching up a loose shirt and putting it on. “I'd been meaning to while away the night hours somewhere nice, but it's nothing I can't do tomorrow or the day after.”

“Oh, yes,” she found herself saying, studying her new environment. She'd been there before, but a very long time ago, and Leon seemed to have redone the premises according to the latest fashion. The furnishings were still sober but they sported the kind of sobriety that spoke of adherence to new trends and vast amounts of money.

“Idleness,” she babbled, sighed and perched on the sofa, flight or fight instinct, perhaps more of the former. “I know idleness.”

Leon sank down next to her, leaving a gap between their bodies, but stretching his arm over the back of the soft, luxurious sofa. His fingertips were brushing the tips of her hair but she didn't think that should warrant a move on her part. He seemed relaxed, mellow. “So,” he asked. “What brings you here?”

“Nothing,” she lied.

His eyes tracked her movements, the way she hadn't let go of the briefcase. To divert his attention, she released her hold and pulled her hair behind her ears. “I didn't think that new restaurant opening was worth my attention, so I came.”

“I see,” he said, tone unreadable. “I thought you'd be with Arthur quite frankly.”

She startled; might have paled. “Arthur? Why Arthur?”

“It's just that I haven't seen him in a while and last summer it looked as though he had an interest in you.”

“I'm not sleeping with Arthur,” she said too quickly.

A smile tugged at Leon's lips. “I wouldn't have blamed either of you if that were the case. I think it would have done the both of you some good.”

“Because we're both so lost?”

“No,” Leon hurried to say. “Because I think you both deserve a shot.”

“At what?”

“Some form of happiness,” he said. “If it can be achieved.”

Sophia pursed her lips and considered. “You speak as though you’re Arthur's friend.”

“I've surely known Arthur for a long time,” said Leon. “Ever since he was ten and I was fourteen. So yeah, it's been a while.”

“Because your fathers were close?” Sophia asked, feigning interest in the carpet's weave. “That's why you're close too.”

Leon rubbed his bearded chin. “I like to think that it's not exactly because of that.”

“Then is it because Uther's in power?” she asked. “That's what my dad told me when I met Arthur, you know. Stick around him because Uther calls all the shots in Albion.”

She batted her eyelashes and Leon leant forward, propping his elbows on his knees and making a cradle of his fingers. “I genuinely like Arthur,” said Leon. “I do.”

Sophia scanned the room, eyes tracking the movements of the brass pendulum encased within the structure of Leon's grandfather clock. Then she stretched like a purring cat and said airily, “I'd like to have a drink.”

“Would a cocktail do?” Leon asked. “I don't have much in the line of reputable drinks.”

She smiled, knowing that dimples were forming at the corners of her mouth. “A cocktail would do just fine.”

Leon rose and left for the kitchen, leaving Sophia to wring her hands together, eyes darting from one object to the next. She stilled when she heard Leon's returning footsteps.

“Record time,” he said proudly, passing her a glass containing some kind of green liquid, a slice of lime perched on top of the glass’ rim. “I hope you like it.”

Sophia took a sip. “Excellent,” she said, appreciating the alcohol kick. “I would like to ask you a favour, Leon.”

He sat back down, frowned, but very calmly said, “Shoot.”

“You work for Uther, don't you?”

“I have both directly and indirectly worked for him for the past six years.”

“I want you to take over floor security at Uther's office tomorrow. It falls within the range of your duties, doesn't it?”

Leon compressed his lips till they almost disappeared. “Why are you asking me to do that?”

“Can't you humour a girl?”

“You know I'd love to,” Leon answered circumspectly. “But I still need to know why.”

“Oh,” she continued in the same tone she'd employed before, “maybe I'm tired of being classed as the paper's ornament and I want access to Uther for an interview. Maybe I want to prove my worth.”

Leon let out air and started chuckling. “In that case,” he said. “Of course, my lady.”

Sophia drained her glass.

****

Merlin was planting little frantic kisses on Arthur’s hair, eyeslids, and nose, his hot, soft, swollen lips ghosting everywhere, nuzzling Arthur’s neck, rubbing against the side of his face, down his chin, then Merlin was covering Arthur’s mouth with his, finding it even in the dimness of this obscure, ominous twilight. Breath warm and sweet, he sucked Arthur’s bottom lip in his mouth, licked at it, making Arthur’s heart falter in his chest.

Equally frenzied, Arthur cupped Merlin’s neck, fingers digging in at the nape, trying to crush Merlin closer, breathe him in. He wanted to melt into Merlin, wrap him in his arms so he could be sure there’d always be more of this, a tomorrow and another one and another one.

Giddy, light-headed, Arthur gasped into Merlin’s next kiss.

On cue, Merlin’s tongue darted inside his mouth, moving over Arthur’s in slick little glides, briefly retreating to wet Arthur’s lips.

Forehead to forehead, they were panting wetly, the distinctive smacking sound of heavy kissing audible despite their attempts at secrecy, the silence of the warehouse broken only by their all too human noises. If the others were awake, they’d know what it was they were doing.

Still unrepentant, Arthur’s fingers were gripping frantically at Merlin’s hips; he was running his thumb over a bared section of hip, pulling Merlin closer still, their hurried, stolen words muffled because their lips were pressed together.

“I don’t want you to go and do it all by yourself,” whispered Arthur. “You may be a powerhouse, but there’s just one of you.”

Merlin, breath still coming too quick, said, “Look at this.”

He drew back a little, leaving Arthur to feel a gust of chilly air hitting his chest.

Head dipped, Merlin pulled back his sleeve and snapped his white bracelet in two, only the black ink of the tattooed numbers now remaining as a memento of Merlin’s very real captivity.

Not quite finished apparently, Merlin smiled, shadows playing on his face making him look like a sprite from folk legends, and mumbled some words Arthur couldn’t understand.

When he was done hissing those odd terms, Merlin wiped his hand over his wrist and showed it to Arthur.

The tattoo was gone, erased as though it had never been there, the skin not even chafed or abraded.

“I understand,” Arthur said, low and a little solemn, sensing that this was the eve of their battle, their great moment. “But it’s not just your fight to fight. They all want to be free, Merlin, just like you.”

“I know,” Merlin said. “But I can do it. And maybe I’ll find I’m not alone, it’ll be.... I know they’re there.”

“I hope so,” said Arthur. “I want it for you. But I’m going to be there as well.”

“You’ve got a government building to take,” said Merlin. “You know they way in better than anybody.”

Arthur tipped his head back meditatively. “I promised I would,” he said as though he was in prayer. “And I will. I just want to make sure you don’t get yourself killed either. It’d be very stupid on your part and reckless, not that that’d be new. And you might be needed when it comes to besieging buildings protected by the military.”

“I knew you’d see the light.”

Arthur couldn’t manage a happy expression but he scooted closer to Merlin, burying his head in his neck. “I want to be everywhere at once,” he confessed.

Merlin drew in a big lungful of air, shivering a little. “Wanting to be ubiquitous, big ambition,” he needled. Then he said more seriously, “You can’t be in control all the time, Arthur. We don’t know how the people of Camelot will take the news; we don’t even know if your friend went through with it.”

Arthur stuck his lip out; let his hand fall open and closed. “I can make sure you don’t do anything too crazy. I can make sure my father is deposed, not...”

“I know you can’t kill him.”

“I thought I could.”

“I thought I could too,” Merlin shared in the near silence, the noise of someone shifting somewhere close the only reminder of reality still existing outside of their nighttime bubble.

“What changed?” Arthur asked as the new day dawned.

Merlin kissed the top of his head, lifted his shoulders and said very, very low. “You.”

After that they woke up one by one, Forridel and Gaius, Freya and Dayra and all the other workers who’d squatted in the warehouse.

“So we march today,” said Forridel, taking in the early morning light.

“I hope,” said Gaius in his old lecturing tone, “that the people of Camelot will have seen the exposé and risen. It'll make things easier.”

“For now,” said Merlin. “We do what we're supposed to do. We can't be sure about all these other things but we can stop the bad things from happening.”

Reddening and coughing, Arthur, said he was with Merlin and would always be.

Boiler suits donned, they set off, acting as though they were going to work, slipping past rows of unsuspecting controllers and guards, Arthur with his head down and his heart drumming loud and obstinate in his chest.

They had an eye out for any strange behaviour on the parts of the workers, advertising their knowledge of Father's scam; Arthur prayed Sophia had done her part.

At first nothing seemed different; all workers were at their stations, attending to the machines, obeying the foremen, pushing levers, pressing buttons, lumbering spare parts or construction materials as if today was just an ordinary day.

“Sophia betrayed us,” he muttered low, anger blooming in his chest, taking an odd shape and contours, threatening to cloud his judgement.

Merlin grabbed his hand, twined their fingers. “It doesn't matter now. The Y sector,” he said, head tilted its way, “is just down there.”

Had this been an ordinary day, Merlin would have stopped there and reported to his supervisor. But today he didn't; he marched forth, one among the many, unheeded because so inconsequential. One person secretly pitted against a whole order.

Only before the big gates guarding and separating Sector Y from the rest of the plant did he come to a halt.

Ignored by the baton-armed guards, Merlin stood there, likely raking up his powers. As he did, the air began crackling with something, like static, that raised goose flesh on Arthur's arms. A frown of concentration marring his brow, Merlin tossed back his head and made fists of his hands, mumbling a flurry of words under his breath.

And all hell broke loose.

The ground trembled, engines burst, and fires spread throughout the plant.

Taking that as a hint, the workers put down the tools of their trade and turned on their guards, who were now suddenly faced with an angry crowd that more than overwhelmed their relatively puny numbers.

Some of the guards started sweating profusely, swearing, retreating, and brandishing their batons and other assorted weapons, prepared to make a stand.

Arthur soon saw that they stood no chance against the seas of angry workers rebelling for the first time in their lives.

Cries filled the air, which became so hot it was unbearable; an overseer shouted, “Put out the fires; put out he fires or the plant is doomed.”

Pieces of valves, nuts and bolts took to flying everywhere like aimless projectiles. Pipes burst; the links holding them soldered cracked apart and were ripped open wherever the welding was imperfect or weak. Jets of steam were released and fluids gashed forth.

The main engine, the machine all the workers had been nurturing and feeding, was slowly collapsing in on itself, a siren blaring out, the alarm being put in place because they system was shutting down.

And then the doors isolating Sector Y were peeled open, thick iron slabs curling inwards like butter on toasted bread, hinges melting; the guards had long fled by then, giving Merlin, who was finally identified as the source of the enormous surge of power, the widest berth possible.

All of them thought of their hides but one, who was armed with a rifle. He shouldered it expertly and aimed at Merlin.

“Arthur,” Gaius shouted.

But Arthur had already seen that and that Merlin was too taken with what he was doing, the magic corusing through him, to have noticed. He and Forridel came at the rifleman from opposite sides and tackled him, shot going wide and not hitting Merlin at all.

“Can you hold him down?” asked Arthur.

“Sure I can,” said Forridel.

“I need to be there,” he said, tilting his head towards Merlin. He wanted to be by his side when or if he chose to enter within the bounds of Sector Y.

“Of course go!” She grinned; the first time he’d seen her do that. “What're you waiting for?”

Arthur rejoined Merlin, not touching him so as not to startle him while he was dismantling an entire industrial plant with the power of his mind. When he felt sure Merlin wouldn’t jump or lose control of his magic, he said, “Merlin,” and left it at that.

“I'm still with you,” Merlin said, standing tall. They were silent for a few moments, looking around at the first tokens of the revolution they’d begun, then Merlin said, “Can you see what I'm seeing?”

The deafening racket caused by the riot and the malfunctioning machinery was stunning him and making him a little less that perfectly alert, but then he saw it too; a group of people was stumbling out of the gates circumscribing Sector Y.

They seemed to be a tottering motley crowd: women, a few children, some men, all of them looking haggard and unsure on their feet. As they came closer, Arthur saw their eyes were the colour of leaves in autumn. “They're all magic,” he said, observing how the little rag tag band, even though vacillating with every step, was radiating power.

“Yeah,” said Merlin. “They're like me.”

Finally the ex captives came face to face with Merlin and Arthur and one of them stepped out from the group and said, “You freed us.”

“I—” Merlin said. “I was too late.”

“We thank you, Emrys,” said the man, introducing himself as Iseldir.

“How do you know my name?”

A child of about twelve or thereabouts took the older man's hand and, gazing at Merlin, said, “Your coming was foretold.”

“Uh?”

“In the legends,” the child said. “Prophecies more accurately.”

“Okay,” said Merlin, shuffling from foot to foot. “Are there any others of you left behind?” His eyes went to the busted doors he'd forced open.

“A few of us,” Iseldir said. “A few of us are still in the cells. We'll free them as you freed us, though possibly less spectacularly.”

Merlin smiled. “Good,” he said. “I suppose you can take up the machine destruction bit from here, while I go and.... Well, help depose Uther.”

“We're not as powerful as you,” Iseldir said. “Having been restrained for so long, our magic is dying out, though Mordred's runs stronger than most.” He offered a placid smile. “We'll finish what you began.”

Reassured, Merlin took Arthur's hand. “Then... Then I suppose it's time.”

Taking a government building by storm shouldn't have been as easy as dismantling a power plant, but in the end it was, for Merlin could disable weapons with a flick of his wrist and almost the entire population of Camelot had risen to the cry of No More Lies and The Sun Shines For You.

At the end of the day, the state police couldn't keep in check the ever increasing number of protesters and rioters that were forming barricades and disarming all the officers they ran into; surrender was considered easier than defeat especially so as most officers didn't seem willing to lay down their lives for the prime minister, not when the whole capital appeared to be up in arms, thousands upon thousands of people having finally seen the light and decided that enough was enough.

The few shepherds couldn't control the rebel flock

However, their last stroke of luck consisted in the fact that Leon had been entrusted with taking over security for the floor occupied by Father's office. Anyone else and it might have been a blood bath.

“Leon,” Arthur said, when weapons were pointed his way. Merlin was standing by his side, arm raised; a group of rebel workers including among others Forridel, Freya and Hengist, plus two magic users that had chosen to support them, was flanking him. “Tell your soldiers to stand down. Nobody need die today.”

“Arthur,” Leon said. “My job is to defend your father and the government he represents.”

Some of the workers started to become impatient, chomping at the bit. “We can make this bloody,” they threatened. “The whole city has risen; we'll have your head on a pike before sunset.”

Merlin said, “Enough, let Arthur speak,” while another magic user supported his view. “It's not by chance that the Pendragon heir met Emrys.”

Arthur focused on saying what he felt needed to be said. “But this government doesn't represent its people anymore, Leon. It can't be allowed to continue. That's not the way to go. Open the door and let me talk to my own father.”

“My duty—”

“Your first duty is to your conscience, Leon,” he said, hoping he was doing a decent job of convincing him. The situation was volatile and dangerous for all concerned. The troops commanded by Leon might shoot; one of the magic users could use a lethal enchantment. “We can make things better, beginning from now on, depending on the choices we make.”

“I—”

“Albion needs justice and freedom.”

Leon stepped aside, head bowed.

Arthur turned towards the workers and said, “Can I go in alone? I'll convince him. I can mediate.”

Forridel nodded grimly. “But if he refuses, we'll have no other choice.”

“I understand that.”

The truth was that he truly didn't. He wanted freedom for everybody but he couldn't imagine having a hand in his own father's death. However ashamed he was of him, he couldn't. Couldn't put an end to the life of the man who’d used to teach him how to spell his first words or taught him the value of dignity, of never bending whichever blows life dealt you. Just couldn't. He never wanted to be tempted.

Breathing deeply, he dragged his feet into his father's office, finding him looking down at the guerrilla scenes going down in the streets below.

“Gorlois betrayed me,” Father said. “I'm sure it was him.”

“You betrayed yourself, Father.”

Father touched his hand to the cold glass. “How can you speak so?” he said irately. “I built all of this for you.”

“Did you kill, abduct and incarcerate magic users for me too, Father?” Arthur asked, body tensing.

Father whirled round, uncontained fury in his eyes. “Nimueh killed your mother. They're so proud of their abnormal powers that they can't contain them, need to show them off, dominate the natural world. That kind of pride would have made us their subjects.”

Working his jaw, Arthur said, “So you subjugated them. Imprisoned them. Y stands for Ygraine, doesn’t it?”

“Better them than us!” Spit flew out of Father's mouth; he thumped his hand on his desk, a loud smacking sound.

“Sign your resignation, Father. It's the only thing you can do at this point. You lost it long ago.”

“I'll never do that,” Father yelled, still foaming at the mouth. There was a haunted look to him too, as though he was paying attention to all sounds coming from outside, probably knowing the building was no longer secure as far as he was concerned.

A little ruthlessly, Arthur exploited that. “Don't let me watch you die. Please. I've lost my mother already.” His voice broke then, but it couldn't be helped. Dignity could only take you that far.

“We can still retake the city,” said Father. “If you stand by my side, we can—”

Arthur stopped him, “We can do no such thing, Father. It's their turn.”

Father seemed to be about to counter that, but shouts were heard from outside.

“Please, father.”

Uther marched to the desk and signed a blank document. “Couch this whichever way you prefer.”

Arthur passed a hand through his hair. Before leaving the room, he said, “Thank you.”

****

The fields were lush and green; the sun was shining brightly on the rolling countryside. Uther was sitting on a wooden deck chair on the patio of his new home in exile, watching the bees as they hopped from one flower to the next, climbing up the stem, rubbing their furry hind legs together lengthwise. He closed his eyes so as not to be blinded by the sun, clutching the letter Arthur had written him to his chest. It was all creased because at first he'd rumpled it up with the intent of binning it — asking for his blessing, a magic user — but then he'd kept it, for it contained the first words from his son in a year, not letting go of it till the writing got smudged and the ink had faded where his fingertips had traced the lettering. Running in free elections, Uther mocked in his head. Wanting to make up for Uther's mistakes. He laughed, thought of Arthur with a certain amount of complacency, perhaps angry, reluctant pride, and opened his eyes.

He opened his eyes and blinked.

“I'm not a ghost,” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

She smirked, crushing a dying bee under the sole of her foot. “I'm sure you can guess.”

Her eyes glowed molten gold; the letter fluttered to the ground.

****

Epilogue

And so it began again, the new order.

The idol had been cast aside; no living sacrifice would ever again be found to be immolated at its feet.

The world had fallen back on its axis yet again, chaos and order commingling to give way to freedom. Some might have said that the new status quo would always be imperfect, just like any other human construct. Some might have said that oppression born of tyranny and the revolutions stemming from it were just phases in the history of human kind.

Some would say, though, that this phase of renewal was fated — a new golden age — that magic and sound leadership had met to restore the balance.

Statements such as this might have belonged to the realm of legend, yet no one could tell for sure.

Still, the idol was toppled.

The fire had burnt out and the waters of hope had flooded the land.

The End.

Notes:  
The title is a quote from the Bible. The original passage refers to Moloch  
 _A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste_ : this is a quote from Samuel Beckett’s _Waiting for Godot_  
 _live as all illusions lived_ indirect Fritz Lang quote  
 _The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world_ is a quote from a poem by William Ross Wallace; it refers to motherhood, but I thought it made some odd kind of sense when linked to the idea of journalism/truth/ruling the world/truth ruling the world.


End file.
